


Tender

by ScooterSister



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Bickering, Caretaking, Conflict, Espionage, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Ingenue - Freeform, May/December Relationship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:47:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 100,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3725899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScooterSister/pseuds/ScooterSister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gretchen Enwright is a home health aide with a checkered past charged with looking after the perpetually home bound Lester Crest. Before long, she is plucked from the tedium of cooking and cleaning for the man and dispatched to spy, steal, and seduce for the shady shut-in. She then finds herself in the regular company of Lester's criminal associates including but not limited to one Michael De Santa and sparks fly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, dudes. I said a while back that I would maybe possibly write a Michael/OC fic and seeing some of the Michael love around the fandom inspired me. So thank you to those of you that took the time to do those because you not only entertained me and contributed greatly to my favorite fandom, but you also made me want to get going on another. That said, I am kind of free-forming this, so updates might be slower coming than they were with my previous works. I have no idea where I'm going to take this, so your feedback is very much appreciated. I don't own any of the characters except for Gretchen.

It was always something with Lester. Always too much, too little, _leave me alone, come back, I'm not finished with you,_ push, pull, badger, ignore. He had never been over the moon for Gretchen. Rarely did he show any affection for the woman who had been inserted into his life by the state because his disability arrangement with the San Andreas required that he take advantage of home health services four days per week to ensure that he was complying with his treatment regimen for his wasting disease. If he wasn't compliant, it was basically considered fraud and Gretchen was responsible for reporting him if he was non-compliant.

Of course, Gretchen thought that the arrangement was bullshit, a thinly-veiled form of ableism masquerading as "caring." Still, it was as close as she would ever get to retaining a cush government job and she wasn't about to give that up for her principles. Her idealism had faded long ago right along with the stick-and-poke tattoo that her first drug dealing boyfriend had given her. So, for the past several months, she had busied herself by being a perpetual and willing thorn in the overgrown boy genius' side. A state-sanctioned home invader paid to take out his trash and put up with his abuses. 

To say that Lester had no affection for Gretchen was not to say that she held no appeal for him. Indeed, Gretchen had caught him eyeing her ass more than once. And because Lester always had computer equipment running along with the humidifier for his asthma, his house was always an oven. The sensible, modest outfits that Gretchen had worn on her first days on the job soon turned into denim cutoffs and slinky tank tops and Lester took notice when he wasn't holed-up in his room. The first time she had caught him, she was bent over on the kitchen floor trying to lift a water stain from the linoleum with caustic chemicals when she turned around and saw him looking at her as though she were an exotic bird that had unexpectedly made his home her nest.

At first, she was creeped out by his occasional perusing of her goods, considering the fact that he was such a bastard to her eighty percent of the time. Soon, though, she began to revel in it as anyone does when they find a novel revenge device for their tormentors. When she called him out of his cave to breathe into the peak flow meter with which she monitored his asthma symptoms, she would bend over and put her hand in his lap, stick the meter in his mouth, look him in the eye and instruct him (in her best sultry voice) to _blow good for me, Smash._ She knew that this wasn't yielding accurate results for the meter but the only thing she had on him were her wiles. He was more knowledgeable, more argumentative, and less capable of basic, tedious and demeaning tasks. He had an edge on her.

So on this day, three months into their tempestuous work relationship, Gretchen was, for what felt like the millionth time, contemplating shoving Lester's wheelchair out his front door and down his steps for the sheer pleasure of watching him faceplant onto the concrete.

"You foolish, foolish woman! You need to consult with me before you bring _any_ foreign bodies into my home environment! I'm asthmatic, I could be allergic! You could send me into an attack!" He was very controlling of who and what came into his house. Gretchen knew this, but for fuck sake...

She held the small, potted fern in her right hand and shook it at him as she shouted back "It's a fucking fern, Smash! Not anthrax! Slow your roll!" She fought the temptation to giggle at her unexpected wheelchair pun before continuing "Who in the _fuck_ is allergic to ferns?"

Lester white knuckled the arm rests on his wheelchair. "Ever heard of spores, Gretch? Ferns have 'em," he shot back. There it was. No matter what they were fighting about, it was almost guaranteed that he could use his encyclopedia brain to make her look and feel stupid.

Gretchen shoved her large, librarian spectacles up the bridge of her nose and huffed out a sigh. She pulled the sleeves of her denim button up further up past her elbows. She walked rigidly to the door and opened it wide. Just as she was winding up to pitch it into the street, it registered that someone was standing on the porch. The man flinched.

 _"Jesus!"_ he barked as he entered a defensive stance. Gretchen froze, taking in the sight before her. Never in her three months on the job had Lester received a visitor while she was on the clock. She stood like that for a moment watching as the man straightened up and looked at her, a hint of apprehension lingering in his face. "Lester's gettin' serious about home security," he said with a raise of his eyebrows.

Gretchen quickly straightened up and hugged the fern to her chest. "I'm sorry," she began. "I didn't hear anyone coming up the steps..."

The man tugged at the lapels of his sport coat and took off the aviators that he wore, tucking them into the breast pocket. "So you weren't getting ready to bust my head in with a potted plant? That's a relief," he said, chuckling and holding up his hands defensively.

Gretchen regained her bearings quickly. "No, no, nothing like that," she began. "It's just that Smash," she said gesturing behind her with her thumb, "hates plant life and the fern needed to go, so..."

"Michael," she heard Lester call from behind her. So, they were acquainted. That was good. She didn't need her employer's paranoia to rise any more than it had. "Come in." Gretchen stepped to the side and watched as this new person ducked past her, giving her a once-over with her eyes. She pitched the fern out into the yard, less ceremoniously than she had originally planned, and shut the door.

"Gretchen," Lester said. "This is Michael, a business associate of mine. Michael, this is Gretchen, my... _helper_ ," he said without hiding his bitterness.

"Gretchen, it's a pleasure," Michael said.

"All mine," Gretchen shot back before looking at Lester quizically.

Lester rubbed his hands together. "Ms. Enwright, do you have any errands you could run while Michael and I discuss business?"

Gretchen glanced between the two men for a moment before responding. "You want me to leave?" she asked dryly.

Lester sighed. "Brilliant observation, Gretch. Do let us know when you find the formula for cold fusion," he said in a taunting sing-song.

Gretchen saw Michael shoot Lester an odd look that fell somewhere between curious and antagonistic. She cocked her hip at Lester. "You know, come to think of it, I _could_ go and retrieve your life-saving medications from the pharmacy," she said.

"Good," Lester shot dryly.

"Or I could go dive head first into a wading pool full of broken glass since that sounds loads better than being in your presence today," she continued snatching her car keys and purse off of the credenza. "Ornery fucker," she hissed under her breath, making for the door. She glanced over her shoulder at Michael once more. "It was nice meeting you," she said before she opened the door and stepped out into the mid-afternoon sun.

She walked to her station wagon. She couldn't stifle the low growl of frustration emanating from her throat as she got into the car and stuck the key in the ignition. She rested her head wearily against the steering wheel. _I should just quit,_ she thought. _It's hardly worth it anymore._ She choked out a sad laugh at the realization that she had only been at it for a few months but that it felt like she should have been days from retiring. She was only twenty eight for fuck sake. She turned the engine over and pulled out onto the narrow street, heading for the city center where the pharmacy was.

Perhaps working for Lester Crest was her comeuppance for all that she had done in her short time on planet earth. Getting involved with drugs and the men who dealt them with no regard for the ugly circumstances that surrounded her addiction had been immoral. The people that suffered in the acquisition of the drugs, the fact that she contributed nothing to society when she was high, the embarrassment of her fulfilling the stereotypes about the children of convicts.

Indeed, as soon as they had taken her father to begin yet another block of hard time, she noticed her fellow seventh graders avoiding her as though she was radioactive. Their parents had, no doubt, placed an embargo on Gretchen Enwright, who would become a derelict junkie whore before her breasts were finished coming in, naturally. Ugh. Even with seven years clean, she cringed at how she had played directly into their predictions. She carried that insecurity with her everywhere.

Something had to change. Being treated like...well, the way that Lester treated her was one of her triggers. Now, she hadn't actually been all that tempted to use thus far, but she had, as a precaution, begun to attend more Narcotics Anonymous meetings than was her wont. And the meetings were good, but they cut into her time with friends and temporary lovers and books and beach jogs. Plus, she still drank on occasion, which was not kosher in the world of N.A. and she often felt guilty about that. She spent a lot of time feeling guilty. Luckily, N.A. didn't cut into that at all.

Gretchen pulled onto the freeway now, deciding to take the long way to the pharmacy. She didn't feel like driving all the way through South Central L.S. today. There had been a lot of carjackings around there lately. _If, in one month, I still feel like this,_ she thought, _then I'll q_ uit. _He has one month,_ she resolved as she drove down the freeway at accidental breakneck speed.

 

 

Lester spent more time than was necessary apologizing for his "assistant's" behavior before leading Michael into his "office." Michael said nothing in response. "She isn't always so _uncouth._ I think she's got a case of the monthlies," Lester mused. Michael rolled his eyes.

 _You aren't exactly a delight to be around yourself, Lest,_ he thought to himself. _She's nice to look at, at least._ In the brief time between when the petite, bespectacled, fair-eyed brunette was poised to chuck a potted plant into his face and when Lester introduced the two, Michael had thought that perhaps Lester had gotten lucky and found a companion. Christ knew he could use one. But once he had gotten a better look at her, looking beyond her over-sized, wire-rim glasses and messy updo, he saw that this was unlikely. Unless she _really_ hated herself, she could do better than a paranoid shut-in criminal that seemed to take great delight in berating her.

"She brought a goddamn _plant_ into my house because she said it would clean the air. I mean, Christ almighty, she's a medical professional. She should know better than to be so reckless," he said, taking a pull from his inhaler. "Sometimes, I think that she was sent here to kill me."

Michael snorted. "Why don't you hire a replacement then?"

Michael watched as Lester's face turned red and he avoided his gaze. He shrugged. "In many ways, she's ideal. When she's not being mouthy and ignorant, she's...you know, pretty quiet. She doesn't ask questions about what I'm doing in here," he said, gesturing to his computer. "Besides, even if she saw what I was doing, she's too _dim_ to comprehend it."

Michael shook his head at Lester. "Bullshit," he said with a guffaw. "You keep her around so you can have something nice to look at."

Lester allowed a wry smile to spread across his face. His eyes widened enthusiastically, "When she scrubs the kitchen floor, she gets down on her hands and knees," he said, sticking out his tongue, mimicking a scrubbing gesture.

Michael chuckled. "You're a sick man, Lest."

"The sickest," Lester said contemplatively, shaking his head. He abruptly looked up and clapped his hands together. "Now, onto why I called you." He wheeled himself to the desktop computer. "As you well know, I have a fondness for tinkering with the stock market.

Michael raised his eyebrows at the flippant way Lester had described such a felonious act. "I'm aware."

"Well," said Lester as he pecked at his keyboard, "in my latest attempt to manipulate the flow, I came across a potential threat to the peace that the four of us have enjoyed since dispatching with Devin Weston and Steve Haines."

Michael's ears perked up. "Wait, what? How is that possible? We ditched our problems as soon as we put those fucks in the ground," he said, rising from a seated position. He could hear his own voice becoming louder.

"Yeah, well, I thought so, too. But Merriwether has a new board of directors and after some _very_ clandestine meetings, they decided to re-open the investigation into Weston's death as a kind of lullaby for investors."

Michael paced the room a little now. "Fuck," he hissed. "Do they have anything to lead them back to us?"

"Well, that's where it gets interesting." Lester reached over and grabbed a manila envelope, passing it to Michael. Michael opened it to see a portrait of a broad-shouldered, stiff-lipped man in his mid-forties. Beneath it was a dossier of information. "They hired this guy, Wallace Daschel to do some digging. He's a former mercenary himself. He could be a problem, Michael."

Michael flipped thumbed through the pages of information. "Are you positive about this, Lest?"

"Would you rather that we leave this potential loose end open an have it come back to bite us? Or to be thorough and move on with our lives?" asked Lester.

Michael tossed the envelope onto Lester's desk. "So what's the plan?" he asked wearily. "When do I clip this guy?"

Lester snorted. "It's not that simple, Michael."

"What'dya mean it's not that simple?"

"Well..." Lester began, wheeling around to look right at Michael, "in video games, you don't just get to fight the greatest threat to your existence right away. You have to get through his lackeys first. His minions."

Michael sighed and shook his head disgustedly at Lester. "This isn't a video game, Lester," he barked.

Lester looked at Michael with a look of confusion before shaking his head suddenly as though he was physically shaking off a thought. "Right," he said, jabbing his finger into the air. "But he _does_ have minions of sorts. Guys that work under him. We need to get through them to get to Daschel."

Michael continued to pace. "Alright, Lester. Well, assuming we're able to take this guy down, what's to say there won't be more. I mean, honestly, I'm starting to feel like I'm in some kind of purgatory and every fire I put out leads back to me and another one starts," he rambled. He was wringing his hands. His head was racing. He had to think. He didn't want to go down this road again. He was tired and weary and while he didn't have much more that could be taken from him, he still needed a respite. Two decades of trying to run out your own criminality had a way of wearing you down.

Lester tented his fingers and sighed. "Well, the best defense is a good offense," he began. _Oh great,_ thought Michael. _First he compared their plight to a video game and now he was_ _using sports metaphors._ "In my estimation, the best way to make this stick is to keep us behind the curtain, working the pulleys while we send a scout to run interference." An Oz metaphor followed by another sports metaphor.It was beginning to get dizzying.

Michael stopped pacing and looked at his invalid friend. "What's that mean?" he asked. "You got someone in mind? Who?"

Lester smiled and let go a sinister sounding hum. "Just a certain worthless certified nursing assistant and bane of my existence..."

"What, Gretchen? You want to send her to slaughter because she brought a fuckin' plant into your house?" Michael accused, gesturing toward the outside world.

Lester began to wheel past Michael, toward the living area. "No, no, no. I don't want her to get hurt," he said, sounding apologetic. "But in a way, she's perfect. I mean, she's young but she's not exactly green when it comes to criminal activities seeing as almost all of her ex-boyfriends are drug dealers. She doesn't really have any family. Her father's in prison and her mother passed away a few years ago, so nobody will notice if she keeps an odd schedule..."

Michael sighed. "Something tells me that she didn't volunteer any of that information, Lest."

"Of course not. I wouldn't let someone into my house without a full workup on them," Lester shot back.

"Mmm. Right. Well, does she know that you're planning on sending her out on potentially deadly errands? Huh, Lest? Or are you going to tell her that over a nice dinner?" As far as Michael was concerned, this plan was already shaping up to be pretty shitty. Which defied all logic since Lester set the gold standard for planning criminal activities.

"I'll talk to her about it this week."

"What if she says no?"

"Then I'll sweeten the pot until she can't say no, Michael. Leave that to me. Now, go ahead and sit tight. I'll get a hold of you when things start to come together. In the mean time, tell the other two legs of the tripod to expect a meeting soon."

At that, Michael began to back toward the door. "Right," he sighed. He placed his hand on the knob but paused before turning it. He turned back to Lester. "You sure this is our girl, Lest? I mean, you don't seem to think too highly of her in terms of her, er...intelligence," he said. It sounded so delicate when he said it, almost as though Gretchen had been standing there the whole time, listening to these two men planning her fate.

Lester looked up to Michael with his tongue planted in the corner of his mouth. He had a look of contemplation fixed on his face as he readied a response. "I don't think too highly of you in terms of your intelligence, either, Michael. But I trust you to get a job done."

Michael hadn't steeled himself against what could have been an absolutely insulting _or_ entirely neutral sentiment from this man whom he'd known and worked with over the course of two decades. He let out a small laugh before he turned and walked out the door.

Michael got behind the wheel of his sedan and stared off into space for a moment. Another day, another loose end. He wondered when this fucking bingo card of ridiculously perilous situations would fill up and he could finally retire. He wondered if retirement was in the cards at all. He wondered too if Lester had finally lost his mind. If his disease had become to burdensome for him to give a flying fuck about whether or not his plans would work. If he'd become sloppy.

Just then, a car pulled up to the curb in front of him. A station wagon. Gretchen exited the driver's side with a small white prescription bag hanging from her mouth while her arms were busy with a couple of grocery bags. She shoved the car door shut with her body and loped up the steps to Lester's house before disappearing inside.

 _Here goes nothing,_ thought Michael.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Gretchen gritted her teeth while she waited for the perfectly measured response that she needed to Lester's proposal to arrive in her mind, magically. She couldn't look him in the eye, so she stared at his wheels instead, trying to hide her shallow breathing. The word that he had used was _scout._ It had sounded so innocent, conjuring images of ugly polyester uniforms and merit badges and campfire stories. The sound of it, however, was not congruent with the task that he was asking for her to perform.

"Smash, I'm not..." she began before letting a shaky sigh escape her. "I'm not perfectly sure I understand what it is you want me to do. Or why you want _me_ to do it." She dared to look up at him now. How unassuming he looked, non-threatening. Anyone would think that he was a mild mannered hermit. But here he was, divulging the truth about his criminal enterprise to her, carefully, incrementally.

His computer was for nefarious, felonious invasions of privacy and market manipulations and security breaches that had netted him millions of dollars to date. The guy she'd met earlier that day? Michael? He was a seasoned career criminal himself, one in a small contingent with whom Lester was associated. The motley crew had effectively crippled that mercenary group and murdered a billionaire AND a federal agent last year.

"I'm asking you to help my associates and myself tie up some loose ends. To help us attain our _tabula rasa._ Uh, that means-"

"Blank slate," she blurted out. She looked up at Lester's wide-eyed expression. It was the same one he had every time she let him look down her shirt. It offended her. "I know some things, too," she shot bitterly.

"Well, then you're even more cut out for this than I could have anticipated, Gretchen," he said, folding his hands in his lap.

"That doesn't mean I want to help you steal things, Lester. My life might not be glamorous, but I'd like to hold on to what I have. I don't want to wind up in jail." She suddenly became deflated at her own words. It hit her very suddenly: she didn't want to end up in prison like her dad. That would have extended the insecurity from her middle school days even further. It would have fulfilled the prophecy of so many pearl clutching mothers who had _bought_ their way into the fancy private school system that Gretchen had been steered into by _auditioning_ for it. _No thank you._ She couldn't even maintain a LifeInvader page for fear that her old classmates would discover what a failure she was.

"Look," he said, obviously growing impatient with her. "I need your help on this, Gretchen. The first day you came to my door, you said that you would help me with anything I needed, remember? Well, I need your help with this."

Gretchen stood up and looked down at Lester incredulously. "Yeah, by preparing your meals and helping you with your medications and making sure you had clean drawers, Lester! Not by stealing from well-connected _mercenaries!_ Fuck you!"

She started for the door, but Lester wheeled after her and blocked it. He grabbed her wrist. "Gretchen, I don't think you're hearing me. I _need_ your help. If I don't take care of this I could end up dead or in prison, which I _wouldn't survive."_

Gretchen yanked her wrist away from him. "What the hell makes you think I'd want to help you anyway!" she barked, ignoring his dire warning. "All you do is shout at me and tell me I'm stupid when you're not gawking at my boobs. Get outta my way!" She tried to shove past him but using anymore force would have hurt him. He parried once more.

 "Look," he sighed. "You're absolutely right. I...I'm not always civil."

"That is a gross understatement, Lester."

He ignored her. "And I don't always express the appreciation due to your for all the work you put in around the house." Gretchen relaxed a bit. Was he about to apologize for the three months of incessant bullshit that he'd put her through? All because she'd had to gall to take a job? "And for that...I'm sorry." Wow. She hadn't thought that he would apologize at all, much less in such explicit terms. She backed away from him. "To be fair, though, I wouldn't gawk at your boobs so much if you didn't parade them around," he said, gesturing around the house with his hand. "It's kind of hard to avoid them when they're in my face."

Gretchen snorted. "Well, I wouldn't have to parade them if you'd let me open a window," she retorted. She surprised herself then by breaking into a quiet chuckle. "Besides, my tits humble you. You'd be a hundred times meaner if I didn't have something to divide your attention, wouldn't you?"

Lester broke into a faint smile and nodded his head before letting it fade. "I really am sorry, Gretch. Please don't quit."

Gretchen sighed and shifted on her feet. She knew that he was only pleading with her because he still wanted her to do this _thing._ The thing with the crimes and guys with guns. And she had thought that her mind was made up about that until a moment ago.

"Smash," she whined. "I don't know if I can keep doing this. After everything you've told me? It's not right..."

Lester sighed angrily. "The things that I've told you don't negate the fact that I live in a wheelchair and that I need help with the most rudimentary tasks on a _good_ day."

Gretchen stared at the floor as she shifted on her feet. She was quiet for a moment before she met his eyes again. "I guess I can stay. Help you with the _normal_ stuff," she said pointing at him. "But that's it, okay?"

Lester's eyes softened as he stared back at her. He nodded slowly. "Deal." He moved from the door then, granting her passage. Gretchen reached for the door but hesitated, resting her hand on the knob.

"Smash? Why do you live in such a shitty neighborhood if you have millions of dollars? Why do you take assistance from the state?"

"Ah, the sixty four thousand dollar question..." He wheeled around to face her. "It's a tax thing. If I lived in a nice big house and kept a bank account state side, the feds would be on to me. I'd have a lot to answer for."

Gretchen shifted on her feet. She was afraid to ask the next question on her mind. "So-"

"I donate five figures to the American Way Foundation twice a year. Trust me, it goes to who needs it most in the end," he said.

Gretchen nodded, satisfied that he was telling the truth before she pulled the door open. She walked toward her car, stopping only to pick up the controversial fern from the yard. She was completely overcome with a tiredness that she hadn't felt in ages. She could have curled up right there on the front steps. She sauntered to her car and blinked back the bleariness of sleep, ready for this completely bat shit insane day to take its leave of her.

 

 

 

It had been almost a week since Michael had heard from Lester when he got the call to meet. He sat on a bench at Del Perro Pier, watching the people pass him by, waiting for his meeting to commence. He looked around casually so as not to look crazy or suspicious. He had yet to catch sight of Gretchen, though. Lester had promised that he had plied her into complying and that she was not only compliant but also absolutely thrilled to be helping. It had taken some leg work and some bribery, but he'd pulled it off.

She was running a titch late but they hadn't really designated an exact meeting place, so he suspected that she was wandering around looking for him.  Just then, he looked up to see her, wading through a sea of beach bums and out-of-towners. He almost didn't recognize her. She had ditched the messy bun, letting her golden brown hair hang just past her shoulders in a blunt cut. Her large, wire glasses were replaced with a pair of dark sunglasses. She glanced around as she walked slowly. And then she looked at him. Right at him. And she froze.

The look on her face betrayed a mixture of utter fright and confusion. Huh? Had he grown an extra head? He didn't have much time to figure it out before he saw her walking backward, away from him. She turned on her heel and began a brisk walk in the other direction. Michael shot up from his seat at the bench and hurried after her. When he was a few steps behind her, he called to her in a normal voice to avoid drawing attention. "Gretchen!" She continued to walk at a brisk pace for a moment before he intercepted, seizing her gently by the shoulders.

"Hey," he said. "It's me, Michael. We met last week? At Lester's?"

Gretchen looked down at where his hand was on her shoulder with a look of apprehension. He took that at his cue to let go of her. She pulled her sunglasses off and looked into his face, squinting against the sun. The light in her eyes made them look even more pale. They almost didn't look real. "Yeah, I remember," she said quietly. 

Michael pursed his lips and stared at her. "Then why were you walking the other way?" he asked pointedly. She blinked hard at him but didn't respond. "We were supposed to meet here, remember?" he said. She screwed her mouth to the side in response. And for some reason, Michael got it just then. He let his shoulders slump as he exhaled sharply. "Lester didn't tell you that you were meeting _me,_ did he?" 

 She shook her head solemnly. "No," she said almost inaudibly.

"For fuck sake," he spat. Gretchen leaned back away from him. "So, what did he tell you? To make you show up, I mean?"

"Er, he said that he needed me to come and pick up a, um...power supply and sound card that he'd bought from someone online," she said sheepishly. She surprised Michael by following it up with a short, quiet laugh. "Jesus, I'm gullible."

"So..."

"Look, uh...Michael?" He shook his head in confirmation before she continued. "I talked to Lester and I told him, ya know, I'm not interested. I mean...You don't have to worry about anything from me." She looked around to make sure nobody was listening and leaned in, lowering her voice. "I don't like talking to the police, like _at all._ I'm not going to say anything to anyone but I can't help you."

She began to walk away again. Michael was left to balk. But he quickly began a quick walk toward her. "Hold up, Gretchen," he said taking her by the shoulder again. He steered her into a space in between a surf shop and a juice bar. When he was confident that nobody was within earshot, he turned to face her. "Look, I don't know exactly what Lester told you, but I know that there's a reason that he tricked you into meeting me, and I'm guessing that it was probably because he wanted me to get you to reconsider."

Gretchen narrowed her eyes at him. Not quite in an angry way, more inquisitive. Even so, she spoke firmly. "There's nothing you can say to convince me to go against my gut, Michael. I've made up my mind. I don't do stuff like this."

Michael exhaled and tapped his foot. He looked at the young woman out the side of his eye. "What is it that you're afraid of, if you don't mind my askin'? I mean, really, if Lester told you even a half-truth about my crew, you'd know that we wouldn't let anything happen to ya."

Gretchen stared back at him blankly. "That's not the issue, Michael. What you're asking me to do is dangerous and illegal and...The fact that you even have a _crew_ is-" she sighed cutting herself off. She waited to speak further, carefully choosing her words. "Like I said, I respect that you have reasons to do the things you do but that's just not who I am."

Michael looked over the young woman before him. She chewed her bottom lip nervously, avoiding his gaze. He wondered if what Lester had said about her had been true. If she'd been with drug dealers before. If she had, that no doubt meant that she'd been a drug user. She didn't have the marks of a drug user, though. She looked like she'd led pretty clean life. She didn't look older than her years and her skin was nice. She was attractive. Though there was something behind her eyes. A weariness that he recognized. Like she'd seen some shit in her day. Something that was repelling her from their criminal enterprise in a big way.

"Are you a Jesus freak or something, Gretchen?"

Her eyes widened and then narrowed at him. "What? No," she spat, apparently offended at the insinuation. "Why would you ask me that?"

"It's just that it kinda seems like you have a holier-than-thou attitude about all this. That stuff you said about me having _reasons for what I do?_ That's some real sanctimonious clap trap, sweetheart."

Gretchen took a step back. "What, just because I don't want to jump into bed with a bunch of bank robbers, that makes me sanctimonious? Get real," she shot back, making for the thoroughfare again.

Michael's hand shot out and blocked her way. "You don't wanna end up like your dad," he said, surprised at his own matter-of-factness. Gretchen blinked at him. Her expression was unreadable. He held her gaze. "I get that," he continued, softly now. "This ain't gonna land you in the clink, though, honey. Like I said, my crew? We do things clean." He glanced down at Gretchen's chest. It was heaving a little bit. She was trying to stifle her quickened breathing. "Will you take a walk with me?"

"No," she said. She looked up into his face then. She didn't say it hard or with any resolve. Michael smiled softly at her and beckoned her to come with him by nodding in the direction of the thoroughfare. And she did. She walked alongside him. Both of them were quiet at first. They walked through the steady stream of beach goers before they got to the boardwalk proper. They simultaneously leaned against the railing. Gretchen fixed her gaze down at the water. Michael looked at her. 

"How did you know about my dad? How did Lester know?"

"He did a...ya know, a background check. He does it to everyone."

Gretchen's face turned sour and she rubbed her arm as though she'd gotten a chill. "What else does he know?"

"He didn't really tell me anything else. He told me that your mom had passed. That's rough for someone your age."

Gretchen cast a steely glare in his direction now. She looked him right in the eye and hesitated only a moment before she spoke. "Why me? I mean, this town is full of people like you. Why do you want _my_ help?"

Michael sighed and felt his brow knit. The truth was, he hadn't really gotten a satisfactory answer from Lester. "Well, Lester thinks you're capable. And loyal."

Gretchen guffawed. "I have no loyalty to Lester Crest. None," she said pointedly.

"Could'a fooled me," Michael replied. "After the way he treated you the other day, most people wouldn't have bothered coming back."

"I need my job," she said immediately.

"So maybe you do this for us and you won't need a job where you get yelled at and insulted all day? Maybe you do this and you'll be freed up to do whatever you want. Which is?" he asked, trailing off.

Gretchen looked at him and cocked her head. "I don't want to tell you anything else about myself," she said quietly.

Michael raised his hands in defense. "Fair enough. I guess I'll  have to figure you out slowly."

"What makes you think I'll let you?" she asked.

Michael waited for an appropriate response to her snipe to come to him as he watched Gretchen step up on the bottom rung of the boardwalk's railing and lean over, peering deeper into the water below. He took the opportunity to look her over. If the circumstances were different, if they'd met in a bar or at a party in the hills, if they were standing on some rich asshole's terrace trying to get to know each other instead of standing on a boardwalk trying to work out details of an elaborate, multi-step theft...Well, if that was the case, he might have taken what she'd just said as a dare. Or a flirtation. And he might have bitten. But her posture wasn't flirty. Her shoulders were slumped and her pout was angry, not inviting.

Just then, Gretchen's sunglasses slipped off of her shirt collar where she had hung them and fell into the water below. Both her and Michael watched them disappear into the dark depths before she reacted. "Fuck," she whispered impatiently. "Seriously?" she said to herself before she leaned back from the railing, looking defeated.

"Want me to dive in there and get 'em?" Michael joked.

Gretchen didn't laugh. She turned to him. "I just wanna go."

Michael sighed. He hadn't really gotten anywhere with her as far as he could tell. It had mostly been a waste. Not to mention the fact that his intention had never been to make this girl hate his guts. "Can I walk you to your car?" Michael asked.

"Yeah, sure," Gretchen said dismissively.

The walk back to the parking lot was awkward but neither one of them seemed to be in a hurry. When they reached Gretchen's station wagon, the young woman turned to Michael and leaned back against her car. "I've made a lot of mistakes, Michael," she told him sounding oddly curt considering how quiet the walk had been. "I can't afford another one."

"I understand."

"Could Lester really end up in jail over the stuff you guys did before?"

Michael ran his tongue over his top teeth and squinted into the late afternoon sun. "Yeah, it's plausible. Or if someone wanted to make sure he was _really_ gone-"

"I don't like the thought of him in jail. With his condition, I mean," Gretchen said absently. She looked into his eyes then. "If I do this, how do I know that you won't sell me out?"

He inhaled sharply. He couldn't show her that she could trust him. Hell, on paper, it would appear quite the opposite. "You just have to have trust, I guess."

Gretchen looked at him, still squinting. She looked charming. Michael stifled a smile at the sight of the dappled skin of her nose all crinkled up like that. She didn't even know she was doing it, he suspected. Her mouth was wide and coral and shiny. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his aviator sunglasses and slipped them slowly and gingerly onto her face. Her face relaxed but he could see her befuddlement in her expression. "You look good," he said quietly. "When you figure out what you want, I'll be waiting," he said. He turned and headed for his car, glancing back at her once, then twice.

When he rode past her on the way out of the parking lot, he spied her again, still leaning against her car. She followed his car with her eyes wearing a blank expression behind his sunglasses.

 

 

 

Gretchen gave more than a passing thought to calling Lester up and telling him to take his job and shove it up his ass. She didn't want to see his face again, didn't want to hear his excuses. She was done. He'd tricked her and couldn't be trusted. _Trust._ That was the operative word here. A word that Michael had used back there in the parking lot. Before he had done that...Thing. With the sunglasses. That thing that confused her to no end. It was either a power thing or a strange peace offering. She couldn't tell which, but it was definitely one of those two things.

Even though she had this cyclone of concerns tearing ass through her mind, she still found herself en route to Lester's. Perhaps telling  him in person was the best way to go. _I'm sorry, Smash, but this simply isn't working. You don't respect my boundaries and neither does your bank robber friend. I'm afraid that I have to sever our professional relationship and insist that you cease any further contact with me. Have a shitty rest of your life, you abusive rodent._

The time seemed to have been sucked up somehow during the drive back over to Lester's. Before she knew it, Gretchen was pulling up to the curb in front of his house. She reached down between her legs where the aviator sunglasses rested and thumbed them. She picked them up and turned them over, staring at them and shaking her head. Contemplating their very presence in her hand. 

She got out of the car and marched up to Lester's door. She took a deep breath before putting her key in the lock and shoving in. "Gretchen?" she heard Lester call from his lair. She followed his voice into the dark, balmy room and looked at Lester. He looked at her with a lot of uncertainty tinged with intrigue, kind of the way a kid might look at his mother when he knew that she'd seen his report card. Gretchen dropped her purse on the floor and leaned against the door jamb.

She surprised even herself when she asked "What do you need me to do?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the comments and kudos. I really appreciate it. I'm glad that this story is getting some attention. Keep the feedback coming, it really helps my process. Now, on with the show!

Sitting in Lester's house five days after his rendezvous with Gretchen, Michael found himself wondering what the Geneva Convention said about muzzling your insane best friend. He'd managed to push Trevor to the back of his mind in the initial phases of this little house cleaning project, but as the four of them consisting of himself, Franklin, Lester, and Trevor waited for Gretchen to show her face, he suddenly realized that he hadn't prepared the young woman for Trevor. And he highly doubted that Lester had if his nervous anger was any indication.

It appeared now that Gretchen had a habit of being late. She'd been late that day at the pier and she was fifteen minutes late this afternoon. And Lester was pissed. He was cashing in all his chips just now, using what little walking ability he had to pace the length of his sitting room, silently cursing her name. Franklin was noodling on his phone while Trevor was in Lester's fridge, opening, sniffing, and sampling the contents of his tupperware containers full of leftovers. Trevor was who Michael was most apprehensive about. _He'll eat her alive,_ he thought. She had been so passive. The only aggressive bone in her body was reserved for counter attacks against Lester and he wasn't sure that she'd be able to tolerate Trevor Philips.

Lester finally tuckered out and seated himself in a chair, resting his hands on top of his cane and glancing at his watch and then his phone and then his watch again. "Where is she?" he whined to nobody in particular.

Michael pushed himself off the doorway that he was leaning on and walked to join Lester in an adjacent chair. "She'll be here soon, Lest."

It was then that Trevor decided to chime in. He walked over, forking heaps of leftovers into his mouth as he spoke. "We're supposed to rely on this chick to be our canary when she can't even keep a meeting?" It was just like him to act high and mighty at a time like this. Even though wouldn't be able to function if he weren't permitted to show up where he pleased when he pleased. It was a rarity for Trevor to show any kind of hypocrisy but Michael knew better than anyone that pointing it out wasn't a good idea. "I mean, _maybe_ Lester was thinking with his little head instead of his big head when he decided to bring a novice into our midst," he said in most sarcasm-laden voice. Michael rolled his eyes and let fly a _Jesus_ under his breath.

"Maybe she changed her mind," Franklin said. "Wouldn't blame her if she did. It's kind of a big favor we askin'."

"No, she'll show up," Lester said absently, nodding and staring into space. "I'm sure of it." Michael looked at him, noting a sinister air about the remark. Perhaps he was sensing a sudden clairvoyant streak in his friend because it wasn't two seconds later that she pushed through the door with her purse slung haphazardly over her shoulder and a tiny styrofoam cup hanging from  her mouth. Everyone rose to meet her. Lester opened his mouth first. 

"Jesus Christ woman, how have you made it through twenty eight years of life without learning to keep an appointment! You're twenty minutes late." Lester chastised.

"I'm here," she shrugged, pulling the cup from her teeth. She threw her keys on the table and glanced sheepishly at Michael. "The Olympic was busy," she explained.

Lester huffed out a laugh as he rose. He leaned on his cane, eyes narrowed at Gretchen. "You live north of here. You should have taken the Del Perro," he accused. He limped toward her as she averted her eyes. "And where did that cup come from? They banned styrofoam from L.S. three years ago."

Gretchen looked up at Lester with a steely glare and took a deep breath. "Interrogating me won't get you your twenty minutes back," she said coolly. She tossed her bag into a chair in the corner of the room and brushed past him to acknowledge the other three in the room. "Hi."

Franklin dove for her first. He never was comfortable with confrontation and openly welcomed her attempt to introduce herself. He held out his hand and she shook it. "That's Franklin, Franklin, Gretchen," Lester called from behind her. 

"Nice to meet you, Gretchen," Franklin said.

"Likewise."

It was then that Trevor stepped in front of her, eager for his _turn_. Instead of cordially offering his hand to her, though, he shamelessly looked her up and down and circled her like a wild dog. "Well, well, well. _Hello, Missy,"_ he said with a chuckle. "How did Wheels bag a lady nurse so far out of his league, huh?" He then sniffed her neck and hummed pleasantly, apparently satisfied at her scent. Gretchen narrowed her eyes confusedly while she clutched her chest and flinched, though just barely.

"Knock it off, T," Michael hissed.

"What?" Trevor asked, feigning innocence.

"That's Trevor," Lester said, apparently unfazed by the insult. "And you already know Michael."

Gretchen glanced up at Michael and gave a quick _hello_ before she looked away again. "So...Are we gonna do this?" she asked.

 

Forty five minutes later, they were spread about Lester's office in the thick of planning their scheme. Lester was hunched over his computer keyboard, pulling up photographs and specs on each of their targets. Three men that they would have to get through in order to get access to Daschel, the man who was out for their hides. In front of him were Don Rice, Peter Dabuque, and Hector Del Gallo. The men who held various key pieces of documentation on the sudden and mysterious death of Devin Weston and the hectic events leading up to it. All that they were missing were names, but Lester figured it wouldn't be long before they got some solid leads and the pack of them were all looking over their shoulders. Except for Trevor, who would have welcomed the conflict, but he knew he wasn't going to win a bid on their blood. He was half the reason all this had started in the first place. 

"According to my intel, Don Rice's next scheduled public outing is a meeting this Thursday at the Richman Tea Room at eight p.m. with some arms dealer. That means we'll have to set Michael up there at 7:45 or so. Gretch, we'll need to put you in no later than 8:20." Lester was utterly engrossed in the details of the plan.

Gretchen looked up from where she was leaning against a wall. "So, these jump drives are where exactly?"

"At his house."

"How do I get into his house?" she asked absently, examining her fingernails. It was then that a terrible and awkward silence filled the air. All four men looked at her slowly. Nobody had mentioned it explicitly, but it had become very clear all of a sudden that Gretchen was the only one that had no idea what was expected of her. She looked up and her face immediately fell into an nervous scowl. "What?" she asked.

Michael and Franklin both shifted uncomfortably while Trevor beamed at her with a shit-eating grin. Lester sat perfectly still, shaking his head at her slowly. Michael looked at him and he could have knocked his head right off of his shoulders if given the chance just then. Hadn't he explained the fucking details to her?

"Gretchen, you're our honey trap," Lester said as though it should have been obvious.

Gretchen straightened her back and let the bastard child of terror and confusion cross her face. "Honey trap," she repeated silently. Just then, Trevor crossed the room to where she stood with his intimidating swagger and put an arm around her shoulder. He chuckled.

"It's espionage, darlin'. You're our chippy. You're gonna wiggle your ass at the guy until he decides that he can't resist that strange and _that_ is how _we're_ gonna get into his house."

"Man, don't be an asshole," Franklin muttered.

When she looked at Michael suddenly, he felt like he'd just had a bowling ball dropped on his gut. Her pale eyes bore into him. He couldn't tell if they were pleading with him or accusing him but either way, it didn't feel good. He couldn't help but feel some relief when she stepped out from under Trevor's arm and walked to where Lester was seated. She stood right over him and glared hard.

"Tell me, Crest. Is your primary motivation to cut out on having to deal with the consequences from Merryweather?" She inhaled sharply "Or is it to humiliate me?"

Lester scoffed. "Don't be so dramatic, Gretch-"

Lester didn't get the second syllable of her name out before she unceremoniously shoved her foot under his chair and tipped him backward, sending him crashing onto his back. He immediately began moaning in discomfort while Gretchen simply turned on her heel and strode out of the room.

Franklin and Michael were left shocked while Trevor immediately began belly laughing at Lester's plight. Franklin quickly regained his senses and went to Lester's side to help him up. Michael shoved past his cackling best friend to follow Gretchen.

 

 

 _Goddamn, motherfucking, piece of shit, motherfucker, cock, fuck, fuck, cunt, shit, fuck, shit!_ Gretchen spent the bulk of her life feeling guilty about one thing or another. She had become so used to it that to feel anything other than guilt sent her into a kind of itch. Guilt was not only a security blanket but also an identity for her. But at this moment, having just dumped her invalid employer (more or less) from his wheelchair in front of his crew, she did not feel a hint of guilt. None.

This had not been what they discussed. While Gretchen was a little too keyed up and nervy to have asked for more specifics when she had agreed to participate in this _information extraction,_ the mention of her using sex to requisition the goods had most certainly not come up. When she got to her car, she realized that she was shaking. It happened sometimes, either when she was frightened or, as in this case, blind with anger. She braced one hand on the car door while she tried to get the key in the lock and when that didn't work, she used both hands, but only ended up marring her door with a new scratch. _"Dammit,"_ she hissed under her breath.

"Hey," she heard a male voice say. It startled her. She turned to see Michael approaching.

"If you're going to try to make me feel bad about kicking that fucker's chair over-"

"Nope," he said cutting her off.

"Then why are you here?"

Michael laughed emptily. His hands were in his pockets as he strode over to her. When he was a foot away, he looked down into her eyes with his piercing blue ones. "Ya know, I know that you and me don't know each other all that well, but it'd be really nice if you could let your guard down for five minutes, kid. Try and have a real conversation."

"Oh, really?" Gretchen shot back with words tempered in sarcasm. "Well, I'm not terribly interested in having a conversation with someone who's been planning to pimp me out to keep him and his other bank robbing buddies out of some mercenaries' cross hairs, _Michael."_

Michael pulled his hands out of his pockets and took her by the shoulders the way he had done at the pier that day. And just as it had that day, it sent a chill through her. "Hey. You're wrong about that, alright?" he said firmly. "I wasn't gonna let anyone put their hands on you. That's why I insisted on being there in the restaurant with you. So I could keep an eye on things and step in if things got out of control." He sighed and let go of her. "But I understand that you don't wanna touch this, okay? We'll figure something else out." 

Gretchen stared at his face, looking for signs of manipulation. She didn't have many talents, but she had a pretty keen eye for when she was being toyed with and...well, this didn't seem to be one of those times. "I'm so stupid," Gretchen said. She wasn't thinking.

Michael narrowed his eyes. "Come on, _what?"_

"I didn't ask anyone what I was supposed to be doing before I just agreed to it, you know? You'd think by now that I'd have a grip on how to ask questions before I just commit to something."

"That doesn't make you stupid. Impulsive maybe, but not stupid." Gretchen met his gaze and saw him smiling faintly at her. When he looked down at her hands, he stopped smiling and took them in his and he said "Jesus. You're shaking like a leaf."

"Yeah, I'm...I'm a little rattled. I think I had too much caffeine today."

"Lemme drive you home."

"Huh?"

"It ain't a good idea for you to drive when you're like this. Let me take you, make sure you get home safe."

As much as she was loathe to admit it, Gretchen knew she shouldn't be driving and, honestly, she was too anxious to drive. She nodded softly and followed him to his car.

The first half of the ride was quiet. Soon, though, Michael decided to bisect that silence.

"So, am I allowed to ask you about yourself yet or am I still on probation?" he mused.

Gretchen smiled despite herself. She thought about it for a moment and realized suddenly how miserable she must have seemed to this guy. Sure, she wasn't Mary Sunshine by any stretch of the imagination, but she wasn't a miserable person, either. In spite of everything, she was generally pretty optimistic. At least that's how she perceived herself.

"What do you wanna know?"

"Where're you from?"

"All over the state."

"Got any siblings?"

"Nope."

"You seein' anyone?"

Gretchen shot him an odd look out of the side of her eye. "No one in particular, no," she answered tenuously.

"Why not?"

Gretchen laughed and shook her head. "Because I make bad choices when it comes to that stuff."

"Why's that?"

Jesus. This guy's questions were rapid-fire. It was like he'd prepared what he wanted to ask after their first meeting. Luckily, she had an answer prepared for that chestnut. "Haven't you heard? My _daddy's_ in prison," she said with a mock pout in her voice.

"That's kind of a cop out, isn't it, Gretchen?"

"I prefer to think of it as a shortcut. Besides, that's what people assume anyway." She rolled her head from it's resting position on the back of her seat to see his reaction.

"Not me," he said with a stiff lip, not looking at her.

"No?" she asked, suddenly eager to hear his thoughts.

 _"I think_ that you tend to look after people and neglect yourself and by the time you get around to taking care of _you,_ ya realize that shit's not worth savin'. And instead of taking what _you_ need, you avoid those situations altogether and use your job as a replacement for relationships."

"Wow," Gretchen deadpanned before she looked ahead. "We've spent a cumulative two hours together and you've got me all figured out. Now I _wish_ you'd been trying to make a pass at me." She heard Michael chuckle in the seat next to her and for some reason, at that moment, it made her heart flutter a little bit. "Are you through with your inquest yet?"

"Just about. I got one more question."

"Shoot," Gretchen said.

Michael cleared his throat and inhaled through his nostrils. "Why were you late today? To the meeting?"

Gretchen stared straight ahead, worried that somehow he would see the lump in her throat if she looked at him. She felt like she was sixteen again, sneaking back in through her bedroom window at four a.m. only to see her wheelchair-bound mother sitting there, waiting for her. Her breathing got shaky. She pawed at her throat, pulling her collar away, feeling hot all of a sudden. "My building's right there," she said, pointing at the adobe complex at the end of the block.

Michael pulled up to the curb and glanced at the building, evaluating her living quarters. She hoped that he'd forgotten already. But then he looked at her. "Answer the question," he demanded softly.

Gretchen slumped in her seat and looked at him finally. "People are late to stuff all the time," she replied, realizing that it was too late. Her silence had already spoken volumes.

"Sure, but...Lester was right. You wouldn't take the Olympia to get to his house from here..."

If there was one thing that an addict could almost always detect, it was when they were trapped. And right now? Gretchen was trapped. Not telling him would only intrigue him more and then she might have to field more questions. And if she wasn't careful, he might get her to admit things that she didn't want _anyone_ to know. Besides, she reasoned, it was nothing a dozen near-strangers didn't know about her. Why not tell the guy who robbed the Union Depository, seeing as how she _knew that about him?_

"You know how Lester made a big deal about the cup I was holding?" she asked.

"Yeah," Michael replied with a question in his voice.

Gretchen reached into the pocket of her cutoffs and fished out a tiny metal disk. "When everyone in Los Santos decided that styrofoam was the root of all evil, what do you think happened to all those little cups?" she asked. Michael simply shrugged at her, his eyes narrowed in concentration as he tried to grasp what she was telling him. She waved the medallion at him. "They all got donated. To twelve step programs all over the city." She watched Michael's eyes widen back up. She let him stare at her for a moment.

She unbuckled her seat belt and put her purse strap over her shoulder. She then took Michael's hand and pressed the medallion into his palm and looked him in the eye. "Tell Lest to call me and let me know what the plan is. I'll do whatever you want," she said before she got out of the car and walked to her building.

 

 

Michael looked down to see what she had handed him. A small, medallion embossed with the message: _Narcotics Anonymous... VII...Keep coming back..._

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. I hope that this isn't going too slow for you. If any of you have read my stuff before, you know I like to take my precious time. Enjoy this chapter!

Thursday arrived quickly. Uncomfortably quickly. Gretchen lay in her bed, curtains drawn, the mid-morning sun seeping in. It was almost tormenting her. Her bedroom was warm but she had goose skin thinking about what she was expected to do that night. She chewed on her thumbnail softly, trying in vain to pacify herself.

She suddenly thought about a junior high dance that she'd attended at the tender age of twelve. About how she had been expected by her small, ragtag group of preteen friends to make out with Eduardo Cruz at the dance, another seventh grader that had been chasing her for ages. Somehow, without her consent or enthusiasm, it had been made so. She would make out with him. Because that's how consensus politics and love worked in the seventh grade. She had done the same thing that day that she was doing now. Laying in bed, her stomach in knots, trying to pretend that she was someone else...

 

 

"She _cannot_ be late this time," Lester repeated for the seventh or eighth time. "Michael, did you text her clear directions to your place? She needs everything spelled out for her."

"Simmer down, Lest. She's on her way."

"Well, while we're waiting, shall we go over everyone's job?"

"Lay it on us," said Franklin from his place on the sofa. Trevor was visibly high, and so he paced about the room as Lester went over the plan one more time. Franklin was going to help Lester with the tech stuff as he had sometimes before, keeping an eye on things while they overrode Don Rice's home security and making sure that he and Gretchen wouldn't be disturbed while Trevor found the files and drives that they were looking for. Michael was going to sit on Rice and Gretchen at the restaurant and follow them back to his place to make sure he didn't take her into some abandoned parking garage instead. He was the safety guy.

"Now, Trevor this is _very_ important," began Lester. "While Gretchen is still in the house, you are _not_ going to clip Rice. You can chloroform him so that she can escape, but we _cannot_ let her see him get shot in the head, you understand?"

Trevor sniffed and paced. He shot Lester an agitated look. "Why the hell not? She signed on for this little adventure, so what the fuck's the problem? I gotta ice the guy anyway, right?"

Michael interjected then. "T, just don't kill the guy in front of her. As soon as she's in the car with me, do what you gotta do."

"She ain't a cold motherfucker like you, T," Franklin mused. "She'll probably go catatonic if she sees dude's brains flying out the front of his head."

Trevor's eyes got wild with excitement as he jabbed his finger in the air. "That's right! Our little princess isn't yet wise to the ways of the world." He rubbed his hands together. "But when _I'm_ finished with her, seeing a guy's grey matter making a hasty exit from his head will be as regular to her as her period!" he exclaimed in his gruff voice.

"Can it, T," Michael warned. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" He took two steps toward his friend. "We ain't doin' this to traumatize the kid, alright? It's a means to an end is all."

"Aw, come on, Mikey!" Trevor trilled in his excitement-laden voice. He always sounded like a kid trying to convince his mom to let him have a second helping of cake or something. As though his life depended on it. "Having a girl in the crew opens up a whole new world for us! Do you know how many rich old perverts we could fleece if she pulls this off?"

The doorbell rang just then, silencing everyone. Michael turned to Trevor. "Just focus on the task at hand, Trevor. Don't get any big ideas."

He walked to the door and opened it to see Gretchen standing there looking upward with her mouth agape, clutching her purse and a pair of high heels to her chest. She looked down and met his eyes, exhaling a sigh of relief when she saw him. "I'm so glad I have the right place," she said.

Michael smiled at her. She had spent some time on her appearance today, he saw. Her golden hair was lightly curled and pinned to the side and she was wearing makeup. "Come on in, kid." He let her step past him. She looked around the vestibule, taking in his home.

"Geez. This is your house?" she asked incredulously.

"Yep."

"Like, you sleep here?" she asked. He chuckled softly and gestured toward the living room. She flashed him a faint, close-mouthed smile, looking a little bashful right then before she walked into the living room.

"Aw, great!" Lester chirped, looking at his watch. "You're on time for once."

"Yep," Gretchen said.

"Alright, let's see it," Lester said.

Gretchen stared back at him, her small smile and blank eyes frozen on her face. She shook her head at him. "See what?"

"What you're going to wear. The dress? I told you to bring something nice to wear," he said.

Gretchen narrowed her eyes at him and gestured at her body, which was clad in a blue sundress with white polka dots. "You're looking at it," she said.

Lester stared at her blankly. "That's not funny, Gretch."

"It's not supposed to be because it's not a joke," she returned with a shrug.

The tension that fell over the room was palpable. The only person that didn't seem to notice was Trevor, who occupied himself kicking mud off of his boots onto the oriental rug. Lester cleared his throat and laughed emptily.

"You're not going to go sip champagne at the L.S. yacht club with your geriatric billionaire husband, Gretch. You are not going to the horse races. You are going to a seedy yet overpriced dining establishment to seduce a guy who has very sensitive information on myself and my associates," he said, his voice rising a decibel with every word.

"Easy, Lester."

Gretchen sighed and rolled her eyes as Lester continued, ignoring Michael's admonition. "Luckily, I anticipated something like this, so I came prepared." Lester leaned over and grabbed an apothecary bag that he had brought with him. He opened it and Michael watched as Gretchen nervously craned her neck to see what was in the bag. Lester pulled out a heap of burgundy fabric and tossed it to Gretchen. She caught it and began to hold it up and inspect it. "Oh yeah," Lester said. "You'll need this, too," he said, tossing a little roll of tape at her, which she also caught.

"What is this?" she asked.

"That's your attire for the evening." Lester clasped his hands arrogantly in his lap.

"This isn't...clothing, Lester. It's a Mobius strip with random straps hanging off of it."

Michael looked over to Franklin who was leaned over shaking his head. They exchanged an _oh, great_ look before returning their attentions to Gretchen and Lester.

"Go get dressed, Gretchen," Lester warned.

"I can't wear this. If I sneeze or...blink wrong, it'll fall off of my body," she said flatly, still inspecting the dress. Trevor cut the relative silence with a mischievous chuckle from the corner.

"That's what the tape's for. The bathroom's just up the stairs," Lester said.

Gretchen looked around to the other faces in the room with light pleading in her eyes. Michael wanted to step in then, to tell her she didn't need to put on that napkin, that the dress that she had worn was fine because goddammit, watching her and Lester bicker and seeing her cave to Lester's demands every time was starting to turn his stomach. But instead of stepping in to defend her honor, he stood up. "I'll show you where you can get changed," he said with a note of defeat in his voice.

"No, that's okay. I'll manage," Gretchen said, turning her back to them.

"Are you sure?" Lester sniped.

"Fuck off!" she called behind her.

As soon as they heard her slam the bathroom door upstairs, Franklin stood up and looked at Lester. "So, tell me this, Lester. If you already had something for her to wear, why you gotta humiliate her like that?"

"That's a good question," Michael muttered.

Lester turned in his seat to face them. "It's a vetting exercise gentleman. To see how well-suited to the task she is."

"It's a little fuckin' late for that, ain't it wheels?" Trevor called. "'Sides, I like the dress she was wearin'. Might have to pick one up for myself."

The other three men turned to face Trevor but there was no time for anyone to ask follow up questions before Gretchen's voice called from upstairs.

"Michael?" she called.

Everyone's eyes turned on him as he got up and started walking out of the room. "What's up Gretchen?" he called up to her.

"Could you help me with something, please?" she called back.

Michael took the steps two at a time, stopping at the bathroom door when he got up the stairs. "What do you need help with?"

He heard her sigh. "I need you to come in here to help," she said through the crack in the door.

Michael hesitated a moment before he approached the door and pushed in. Gretchen looked at him from where she was leaning against the counter in front of the mirror. She already looked knackered. She was wearing the dress that Lester had brought. It hung off of her frame so that she had to hold the front of it to her body. She looked like she was wrapped in a bath towel. A lacy, white bra was sitting next to the sink. He stepped behind her and he looked into the mirror to see her face. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah," she said apologetically. "Sorry to bother you, but this dress has tie-straps in the back and when I try to tie them, the dress shifts either left or right, so I need to tie them so it stays in place." She looked at his reflection from where she had been examining the front of her dress. "Can you help or not?" she asked quietly.

"Sure," he said. He looked down at her back. There were little constellations of freckles here and there, one of which surrounded a tattoo of the planet Saturn on her spine. He gingerly took the first set of strings and began tying while she held the front of the dress in place. "So, uh. You ready for tonight?"

She snorted quietly. "Boss man doesn't seem to think so."

"Aw, who gives a fuck what he thinks?"

"Don't you?"

"Naw," he replied, starting on the second set of strings. "I think you're gonna do fine."

"Do you really believe that?" He caught her looking at him again in the mirror, a smile playing on her lips. He smiled back but didn't answer. It was a trick question, he was sure. He got to the last string at the small of her back and saw her black, satin underwear peeking out from the skirt part of the dress. He tried not to linger on it too long before he tied the last set of strings, which pulled the dress taut and covered her panties back up.

"You're all set," he told her reflection. She stared back at him.

"Thanks, Michael."

"No problem."

She cleared her throat and held up the roll of tape that Lester had given her. "Tape time," she chimed. "I'll be down in a minute."

"Good luck," Michael said with a small chuckle before he turned and left the bathroom.

 

A few minutes later, the guys were all in the vestibule, waiting for Gretchen to come down so that they could head.

"Gretchen!" barked Lester. "It's 7:14, get down here, please!"

"Cool it, I'm coming," she said as she appeared at the top of the stairs, carrying her heels. She bounded down the stairs, paying no mind to how they were all looking at her. Somehow, she looked more put together now than when Michael had been standing over her, helping her with the dress. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she bent over and put her heels on.

 _"That_ is more like it," Lester huffed out excitedly, limping over to her.

"Yeah," Trevor growled in a libidinous baritone. "Now she looks like an escort." Gretchen and Franklin each shot him a nasty look. "But an expensive one that gets paid to bang sultans!"

"Thanks, Trevor," she said dryly.

"Don't mention it, sweetheart!"

"One last thing," Lester said, pulling out a small, shiny object from his pocket. He handed it to Gretchen. It was a barrette. "Put that in your hair."

Gretchen looked at it for a minute before she slid it into her hair as instructed. "So you're telling me how to accessorize, too?" she shot.

"It's a mic, dingbat. If our friend Don Price decides that he wants to take you to a hotel or, God forbid, an alleyway, instead of to his house, you can feed us directions to where he's taking you."

Michael fully expected for Gretchen to have another freak out at the prospect of things not going according to plan, but if she was having second thoughts just then, she didn't show it. Instead, she simply said "Cool." She turned to Michael. "Ready?"

He stared at her for a moment. He didn't know if he should be afraid or if he should rejoice at her sudden change in demeanor. He didn't mull it over for long, though.

"After you."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said above, I hope this isn't too slow for any of you. I'm very into character development and banter if ya didn't notice. That said, I had a lot of fun writing the little argument between Lester and Gretchen over the dress debacle, so don't be surprised if silly little things like that show up. Oh, yeah, I'm also going to try to utilize Franklin more. I mentioned in the notes of one of my last stories how, while I love me some Franklin, I kind of feel like he was the most thinly written character of the three, which makes him difficult to write and also sucks because in a lot of ways he's kind of like the main "protagonist" (in my eyes). So, to my fellow Franklin lovers: I promise that I'm going to try to inject a little more of him into the story as I have Trevor. I love you all and thank you so much for the support and feedback!


	5. Chapter 5

Gretchen sat in the passenger seat of Michael's car, stiff as a board, staring blankly at the awning over the Richman Tea Room. It was a deep green with block letters. It conjured a feeling of unchecked masculinity and wealth and Gretchen found herself wondering if a woman had ever set foot in the place. It  seemed like it could have been a recently desegregated country club. Sure, women were technically allowed, but their presence in the establishment was frowned upon.

"You ready for this?" she heard Michael ask from the driver's seat. She didn't look at him.

"Are all the women who come to this place sex workers?"

"Doubt it."

"What do I do if he asks me my name?"

"He's probably going to ask you your name, even if he doesn't care what it is."

"Do I give him my real name or a fake name?"

Michael sighed. "You got a middle name?"

"Yeah," Gretchen nodded.

"What is it?"

"Sophia."

"You'll be Sophia, then."

Gretchen looked over at Michael. His voice had been quiet and sounded distant, almost like he was at the end of his rope. Like they had been married for thirty years and he'd grown tired of her ceaseless complaining. So she hadn't expected for him to be looking back at her like that, so intently. It made her feel even more nervous than before. "Shouldn't you get going inside?" she asked.

Michael glanced at his watch. "Yeah, it's about that time." He looked back to her. "You hang tight. When I get inside, we're gonna test that transmitter. I'll let you know when I need you to say something."

"Okay," Gretchen said apprehensively.

Michael looked at her for a moment longer, searching her face before hopping out of the car and heading toward the building.

Gretchen didn't know what to do with herself for that forty minutes. She tried some deep breathing and visualization, but nothing was calming her nerves. She opened Michael's glove box and rifled through it briefly. She didn't find anything terribly interesting, but she did find a half-full soft pack of cigarettes and a lighter. While she didn't typically indulge that particular vice, she decided that she would rather do that than twiddle her thumbs any longer. She stepped out of the car and ducked into the doorway of a heavy metal bar that wasn't due to be open for another hour or so. She figured nobody would disturb her here.

She nursed the long, full-flavor Redwood cigarette, glancing around the sidewalk, idly watching cars. Finally, she heard her phone make a  _bing_ sound and saw that she had received a text from Michael.

 _Say something,_ it read. At the bottom of the text was a signature. _-M_

Just then some lone, young punk on a long board zipped by Gretchen, giving her a lusty stare. "How much?" he crowed at her.

"Fuck off!" she retorted. Not ten seconds later, her phone _binged_ again.

_Excuse me? -M  
_

"I wasn't talking to you. I got catcalled," she said. She felt stupid talking to thin air but the last thing she needed was for the guy who was supposed to be looking after her safety to think that she was blowing him off. 

 _Showtime,_ he wrote back. Gretchen took one last deep drag of the cigarette before flicking it into the gutter. She looked to her destination, to that bawdy green awning with the butch letters and began to walk briskly.

The Richman Tea Room was, as Gretchen had assumed, unapologetically masculine. It was dark and there was red leather everywhere. The pendant lights were green and the place was permanently sullied with the smell of pipe tobacco even though San Andreas had banned indoor smoking fifteen years ago.

She walked to the mahogany bar and slammed her purse on top of it taking a seat. The place was air conditioned, which would have been welcome normally, but since she was wearing next to nothing, she was finding herself unpleasantly chilled. The bartender was quick to acknowledge her.

"Evening, ma'am. What can I get you?"

Gretchen smiled warmly and decided to try her bedroom eyes on him. A sort of drill-running exercise. "I dunno, what _can_ you get me?" she cooed at him.

He grinned back at her boyishly. "I'd love to make you an Algonquin, miss."

"I'd love to try your Algonquin, sport."

He blushed and tugged nervously at the towel slung over his shoulder. Either he was new to this or she was really, really good, she figured. And then she remembered that this was a boy's club. He probably didn't get flirted with a lot by women. "Coming right up," he managed to say.

Gretchen heard her phone chime at her again. She opened the new message. _Save some magic for Rice. -M_

Gretchen chuckled. "A little warm up couldn't hurt," she said, knowing that he could hear her.

The bartender returned only a moment later with a martini glass. He placed a cocktail napkin in front of her and set her drink down. Gretchen reached into her purse to pull out her pocket book, but the bartender placed his hand gently on her forearm. "No need, miss. Compliments of the gentleman in the corner booth," he said, gesturing behind her. She followed his hand to the corner where she saw him. Don Rice, no doubt about it. She recognized him from the photo that Lester had sent her earlier that day. His hair was a distinctive salt and pepper. His eyes were huge, brown, and a tiny bit sunken. He smiled at her crookedly and raised his glass to her. The man with whom he was meeting was there but didn't seem to mind that his associate was picking up strange women on his time.

Gretchen gave him a little wave and then turned back to the bar. "That was easy," she mused to herself.

"'Scuse me?" asked the bartender.

"Nothing," she shot back immediately.

 

About a half an hour later, Gretchen was nursing her second cocktail, another gift from Don Rice, with whom she was making intermittent eye contact. Oh, sweet, sweet liquor. Gretchen understood in theory why alcohol was forbidden when you were in recovery from narcotics. Really, she did. She knew that there were those among the ranks of the former junkies that would use any excuse to use again, and there were those that really did fall into magical thinking when they had a little liquor in them. But right now, at this moment, Gretchen couldn't imagine being where she was, doing what she was doing if it weren't for the booze. She swirled it around in her glass, noting how the reddish liquid clung to the sides. 

Suddenly, though, as she was meditating on the physics of her cocktail, a figure appeared in her periphery. She turned to see Don Rice at her side. Funny, though. She figured Michael would have given her a heads up. No matter. He probably hadn't wanted to make her nervous.

"Well, hello gorgeous," he crooned at her. He took a seat next to her at the bar. Gretchen turned toward him. "I haven't seen you in here before."

Gretchen leaned forward a bit. "Well, that's probably because I've never _been_ in here before," she said. He let out a sudden, unrestrained string of chuckles at that. _This guy is easy,_ she thought. She joined him, giggling an exaggerated, girlish giggle.

Lester had informed her that this mark would likely be the easiest because he had easily the most unbridled appetite for working girls out of the three, though all of them were fond of paying women for sex. It was a part of the culture at Merryweather, he'd explained. The boys on the capitalist side of it would often throw lavish parties that were really, at their core, lady buffets where they could pick and choose which women they would have accompany them back to their rooms. _"And they're getting tax write-offs for these little 'conferences'",_ Lester had snarled. He really could be one hell of a justice fiend when he wanted to be.

"Well," said Don. "I'm sure glad that you walked into _my_ favorite watering hole tonight." He grazed Gretchen's arm with his index finger. The act turned her stomach a little bit but she now had enough alcohol in her system that she didn't automatically recoil from his touch.

She leaned toward him. "Not as glad as I am, cowboy." He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

"So," he began. "Who have I been buying drinks for the past hour, huh?"

"You sure you wanna do names?"

His eyes flashed with arousal. "Mmm. Shall I call you...my coy mistress?"

"Is that a literary reference or something?" she asked.

He raised his eyebrows at her. "Why yes, it is. I guess I took you for the literary type. You look like you enjoy poetry, mistress."

 "I studied engineering," she said. She took another gulp of her drink and slammed it down on the bar. "And my name is Sophia."

"Sophia," he said, drawing the name out, playing with it in his mouth. "It's a pleasure. I'm Don." Instead of offering his hand to shake, he placed his hand on the small of her back and began stroking her with his thumb. It made her skin crawl.

"Don," she said. "Are you going to sit and leer at me all night or are you going to take me back to yours?" Anything to get his hands off of her for five minutes. Don was visibly taken aback. But luckily, he didn't seem to like the chase all that much.

"Let me settle the tab, beautiful," he said eagerly. As soon as he walked to the other end of the bar, sport coat slung over his shoulder, Gretchen heard her phone go off one more time.

  _Guess you didn't need a coach after all. Mistress. -M_

Gretchen ignored the vote of confidence. She had a minute before Don would be coming back and that unflappable gusto that she had shown with him was an act. A complete act. She was terrified because now she had to be alone with him, more or less.

"You'll be there in case something happens, right?" she asked softly _._ She waited a moment for him to respond, keeping her eye on Don, who was signing a credit card slip, now. 

_I won't let anything happen to you. I mean it. -M_

 

The entire ride to Don's house had consisted of him casting dangerously long glances in Gretchen's direction from the driver's seat of his half-million dollar sports car. Gretchen steeled herself against the creepiness and smiled at him wryly, while she chewed her pinkie finger. It was a nervous act but she had hoped that she was successfully shrouding it in faux-sexiness.

At one point, he asked her how much her services were going to cost. Her first impulse was to scold him for presuming that she was for sale. But then she remembered where she was and what she was doing. Then her impulse was to ask him what the hell he cared, he obviously wasn't hurting for money. Finally, she wanted to panic because she hadn't thought about how she would respond to that inquiry, nor had she researched the topic of escort rates.

"Three fifty gets you an hour and a half. But I'm yours for the whole night for thirty five hundred," she said. She hoped that she sounded convincing.

Don wiggled his eyebrows in approval. "That's a screamin' deal, gorgeous," he said.

"Well, I guess you make me feel generous, Don," she replied before she looked out the passenger window and rolled her eyes.

Don's house, like Michael's, was an architectural marvel. Unlike Michael's, it was completely streamlined. Appliances were voice activated and everything was stainless steel. It was a beautiful, heartless behemoth of a home. As soon as they had gotten through the door, Don began walking from the anteroom into the rest of the house. "You want some champagne, Sophia?" he said, still bouncing her fake name about playfully.

"Please!" she replied curtly. She looked at the alarm keypad, which was cleverly hidden beneath a wall sconce. She tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for Lester and Franklin to override the automatic re-arm function. "Come on, Lester, you fucker."

"Did you say something?" called Don.

"Nope!"

Finally, as Lester had anticipated, the small red light on the interface turned blue, indicating that Gretchen had thirty seconds before it was armed again. She hastily went to the door again, opened it quietly and reached into her purse. She pulled out her little paper weight and slid it between the door and the jamb, careful to see that it wasn't too ajar, but that it would be open wide enough for Trevor to slink in noiselessly.

Once she was satisfied with her work, she got up to follow Don into the house. He surprised her by appearing in the doorway just as she was getting ready to go through it. She jumped a little but began giggling nervously as he handed her a flute of champagne.

"What are you doing out here, sweet thing?" he said as he wrapped his arms around her waist. "The fun's in there." He stuck his nose in her neck inhaled.

"I was..." Gretchen looked around the anteroom for a viable excuse. "I was looking at that painting." Don let go of her and turned to the wall to face the gauche, geometric painting.

"Beautiful isn't it? I got from the Gnocchi Gallery in Berlin."

"It's, er...It's stunning."

"You ever been to Berlin?"

"Can't say I have," she said. She was immensely relieved all of a sudden. Obviously, he liked to show off his things. That would buy them some time.

"Well, you have to go. It's incredible."

Gretchen tossed the contents of the champagne glass into a plant as they entered the veritable ballroom that was Don's house. He led her to his leather sofa and sat beside her. His face was so close to hers that she could smell his aftershave. He put his hand on her thigh.

"Sophia?"

"Don?"

"Since we're going to be spending the night together, I think it's important that I'm very honest about what I expect from you."

Gretchen gulped. "Okay. Lay it on me, Don," she said, immediately regretting her choice of words.

"I'd rather whisper it to you."

Gretchen felt herself begin to tremble a little bit. If he was about to tell her that he wanted to string her up by the ceiling and throw knives at her or something, she would have to relay it to Michael discreetly in time for him to get in there and save her. But before she could protest, he was in her ear, describing in very great detail what he wanted done to him. It was a lot. Surely more than a night's worth of stuff and definitely worth more than thirty five hundred dollars. Some of it was stuff that she'd heard of, some of it was stuff that he must have picked up in Berlin because she was sure that it wasn't legal stateside.

In the thick of him reciting his sexual agenda to her, she spied a movement in the doorway of the anteroom. It was Trevor, waving at her to get her attention. She waved him through, beckoning him with her eyes to get out of this room where he could be spotted. He made it halfway along the far wall when Don pulled away from Gretchen's ear.

"Do you think you can do that for me?" She thought fast and covered his eyes with one of her hands. "Oh, my. Someone's an enthusiastic mistress!" Don said giddily. Gretchen mouthed at Trevor angrily to get out while Don began pawing at her. It took another moment for Trevor to leave as he seemed to be intrigued with the foreplay that was now happening in front of him, but as soon as Gretchen mouthed _Get the fuck out_ one more time, he gave her a salute and slunk into a hallway off of the open kitchen. Gretchen turned her attention back to Don, who was getting a mite handsy.

"What do you think you're doing? Did I tell you that you were allowed to touch me, you...I'm sorry, what was it you wanted me to call you again?"

"Fuckboy."

"Oh, yeah...Hands at your sides, Fuckboy!"

Ten minutes later, Don "Fuckboy" Rice was blindfolded and tied to a leather recliner while Gretchen threw ice cubes at his head.

"Oh, Mistress Sophia," Don whimpered in between her flat, half-hearted admonitions to _shut up, Fuckboy._ Luckily, he didn't seem to notice her lack of enthusiasm. Finally, Trevor emerged from the back and waved the legendary jump drive at her and started walking toward them.

Gretchen gestured at Trevor to be quiet. She didn't want for Don to get scared. Something about him being afraid would have crossed a line for her. Of course, as always, her wishes didn't count for dick. Trevor began chuckling.

"Who...Who is that?" Don said, gasping. "S-Sophia?"

"Trevor!" Gretchen whined.

"Who's Trevor?" Don cried.

Trevor cocked an eyebrow at Gretchen and chewed the inside of his cheek. "Night, _Fuckboy,"_ he said before he stuck a needle in Don's neck and pushed down the plunger. She watched as Don's body went limp immediately.

Michael walked in then. He went to Trevor's side and looked at Gretchen. Gretchen stared at Don blankly. She didn't think that she would be so disturbed at watching consciousness stolen from him like that. Then again, he was mostly naked and bound.

"Let's go, Gretchen," Michael said as Trevor surrendered the jump drive to him.

Gretchen didn't listen, though. She walked to where Don was passed out and pulled his blindfold off. She opened the lid of his right eye gingerly and then held her ear to his face to listen to his breathing. It was steady. That was good. She pressed on the sides of his face and stuck her finger in his mouth, pressing down on his tongue.

"What the hell are you doin', Gretchen?" Michael said with a note of horror in his voice.

Gretchen looked up at him. "I'm making sure his airway is unobstructed."

"Now, now, now, missy. Don't you worry. I'm not going to _obstruct his airway,"_ Trevor taunted. "Go with Mikey, I've got it from here," he said, waving her off.

Gretchen looked to Michael. She was nervous. She'd seen people put under before but only for legitimate, medical purposes. Michael held his hand out to her and made a come hither motion with his fingers. She reluctantly joined him at his side. "It's gonna be fine. We gotta get outta here, though. You're job is done. Let's go."

She looked into his piercing blue eyes, which temporarily inculcated her with a sense of calm. She didn't know why she was suddenly reluctant to trust him. Everything had gone as he said it would. She was safe. It was then that he put his hand on the small of her back, where Don had earlier. But where Don's touch had made her skin crawl, Michael's...didn't. She suddenly found herself wishing he would keep it there.

He led her out of the room, into the anteroom and out the door. Her part was over. For now.

 

 

"I just don't get why you were so worried about it, Gretchen. That's all, I'm not accusing you of anything. It was an odd gesture is all," Michael said defensively. He tapped agitatedly on the steering wheel. Five minutes into the drive back to his place from Price's, he'd inquired about her little...Well, sticking her fucking finger into the guy's mouth. Acting like his nurse all of a sudden. And it had started a little argument.

He could see Gretchen shaking her head out of the corner of his eye. "Well, excuse me, Michael, but I'm a medical worker first and an accessory to larceny second, okay?" she sniped. "Jesus."

"Hey, I'm just tryin' to understand your thinking back there. I mean, it was just a little sedative for chrissakes. Are you gonna leap into nurse mode every time we do this, or what?"

"No, but if I see someone like Trevor Philips stick someone with a syringe, I'm bound to get a little bit concerned, alright?"

Michael chuckled dryly. "It wasn't your professional instincts kicking in, Gretchen."

"What would you know about that?"

He ignored her baiting tactic and continued. "You didn't have control and you were out of your element and you had to do something to give yourself back a little control. Like a ritual."

Gretchen turned to look at him. Her eyes were wide with a kind of mocking inquiry. "Oh? Well, I hope that wisdom was free because I'm fairly sure that having someone tied up and blind folded puts _me_ in control every time, Michael."

"If only," Michael muttered.

"Anyway, you got what you wanted, so I don't see what the problem is."

"The problem is you make my fuckin' head spin," he said, sounding more inflammatory than he'd intended. _Christ._ He was bracing himself for her full fury. He was ready for him to shout his head off or something. The way she'd done with Lester. Fuck knew he'd deserve it if she did.

"I'm sorry," she said. And that was it. No sarcasm. Nothing. He looked over to her. She wasn't smirking. She looked out toward the road with a look of deep contemplation. Not a look that said that she was about to make throw another snide comment at him. For fuck sake and for better or worse, she was the strangest person he'd come across in some time. Hot and cold.

"No...No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't give you so much hell. You did me... _us_ a real favor back there." She faced him and gave him a warm little smile. For some reason, even though there was nothing particularly lusty about her smile, it sent a jolt of what felt like arousal through him. Kind of like how it would feel if he was twelve and a girl outside a movie theater smiled at him like that. He must have been tired. It had been a stressful couple of days, he decided. No, a stressful couple of _years_ was more like it.

They were on the highway now and, after a few moments of quiet, he saw Gretchen wriggling in her seat. She was sighing. She seemed restless. She scratched her torso slowly with her thumb. _"Goddammit,"_ he heard her mutter softly as she tugged on her dress.

"Everything okay?"

She laughed quietly, but with irritation in her voice and shook her head. She started to speak but hesitated at first. "I'm really sorry to do this in front of you, but it's driving me insane," she said.

"Do what?"

She reached around her back and snaked her hand inside the bodice of her dress and pulled. "Oww.." she whined before she inhaled sharply. Michael looked over to see what she had done. She was holding up a piece of the tape that she had used to keep her dress in place and inspecting it. She reached back in and pulled off another one, and then two more from near her chest, though she was quieter about it after the first one. She balled the tape up and shoved it into her purse. She rubbed her chest and sighed in relief. "That is _so_ much better..."

Michael sat in stunned silence for a minute. He'd had a stranger's tits in his face on more occasions than he could count. He'd shared a living space and a bed with Amanda for two decades before she had packed it in again. But something about watching Gretchen pulling off strips of body tape, a discomfort and humiliation that she had endured to keep him and his running buddies above ground...Well, something about seeing that was the most bizarrely intimate thing that he could have imagined seeing just then.

Michael bit his lip and looked at her through the side of his eye. "I guess you'll wanna bring your own dress next time, huh?"

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

When Gretchen was fourteen years old, about two years after they put her father in prison for the third or fourth time (and also the longest time), she began to ache for something unspeakable. As in, she couldn't speak of it because she didn't know what it was or how to express it. It crept into her mind and truncated her sleep every night. She knew it intimately but she didn't know its name. Until she did. Boys.

As cliched as it was, having her father carted off to jail and knowing a man's tenderness only through the encouragements of dowdy, married male teachers that thought she might _have a career in the arts or that she should really consider entering the science fair this year_ had left her woefully deprived of something. But soon she discovered that simply by virtue of her being a girl, she could enjoy all the male attention that she could possibly want. And starting at age fourteen, she did.

And every night that she spent indulging the fancies of her young suitors began with her staring out her window, waiting for them to show up in their automobiles. Some of them were rusted out starter cars that seemed to run only on prayers while some were practical sedans that their mother's let them use for the evening. But their appearance outside on her street always made her feel as though she were kicking off a major sporting event. The anticipation was the lighting of a torch, something truly beautiful and inspiring to behold. That's how she felt on this particular evening.

The breeze was slight and pleasant as it blew in through her sheer curtains. She waited patiently for the appearance of a black sedan to kick off the main event. Well, okay, in truth it was another meeting with Lester to go over the details of their next adventure, but that wasn't _all_ that it was. The times that she was with Michael had begun to feel strangely like triathalons of sorts. They were events in which she had to gird her brainwaves against his weird little psychoanalyses, no matter how wrong they were. Events in which she had to keep a conversation motile without blushing when she felt his eyes on her, which was more and more each time they were together. It was a delightful sort of torment for her, really. She knew that it wasn't right, but she found her need to attend N.A. meetings dwindling. Because she had a new vice to nurture in her shiny new pseudocriminalistic lifestyle.

Finally, after a while of her being stuck in her head and watching the street like a hawk, she saw his car pull up. And she might have panicked a little bit because she didn't know if she should rush outside to greet him or if she should pretend like she didn't even know that he was there and wait for him to text her. And then she could act all blase about it instead of letting him get wise to the fact that she _wanted_ him to come get her.

She walked to her kitchen counter and hopped up on it, opting for the latter approach. She kicked her legs and waited for her phone to chime. She felt pathetic being so evasive, but she hadn't felt this way in a while. Her life had been unbearably dull and more than a little pathetic, so she was going to let herself have her little adolescent moment. She began whistling the national anthem and got two measures in when she heard a knock on the door. It startled her off the counter before she walked toward the door and opened it up to a waiting Michael, looking as cool as all getup in another pair of aviator shades, much like the ones that he had given her.

"Hi," she said blankly.

"How's it goin'?" he asked, sounding irrepressibly cool. Too cool for her to try and match.

"You came to the door," she said.

Michael gazed at her, stiff-lipped. "I did."

"You didn't lean on your horn or send me a one word text," Gretchen said trying to hide her incredulity. She could hear that far away dreaminess in her own voice. "You got out of your car and came to my door."

Michael leaned toward her, resting his forearm on the door frame while Gretchen stared at him. "Is that okay with you?" he asked in a way that told Gretchen that he already knew the answer. She smiled at him.

"I have to find my bag."

Michael followed her inside and closed the door behind him. Gretchen immediately set about searching the small living space for her leather bag, which she had genuinely misplaced. Losing things was one of her shitty habits from her using days.

"Nice place you've got here," she heard Michael say behind her. She pulled herself up from where she was crouched by her couch and looked at him.

"Don't do that, Michael," she chided.

"What? I mean it, it's, uh..."

"If you say 'cozy,' I'll pitch this at your head," she said, wielding a glass paperweight at him.

Michael chuckled. "Noted."

Gretchen ran back into her bedroom and found her bag on her nightstand. When she reemerged, she found Michael studying a small wooden windmill on a set of desk drawers against the wall. "Found it," she said waving her bag at him.

Michael cleared his throat. "Well, seeing as how I was sent here to make sure you got to Lest's on time, I suppose we oughta get going. Shall we?"

 

Gretchen stared out the window and counted white cars on the freeway while Michael weaved in and out of Sunday drivers, which in San Andreas were what the rest of the country would consider reasonable drivers.

"You know, kid, I wasn't trying to bust your chops back there. I really do like what you've done with your place."

Gretchen smirked. _"What I've done with my place?"_ she parroted back.

"Yeah," he said. "With the little windmills and the needle points with the... _interesting_ language with all the 'k's and 'j's'..." Gretchen laughed. "What is that?" he asked, smiling. 

"It's Dutch," she replied.

"You're not one of those girls that's obsessed with Europe, are you?"

Gretchen laughed louder at that remark. "No, I'm one of those girls who was _born_ in Europe. My mom was from the Netherlands."

"So... _Gretchen_ is a Dutch name, then?" he asked trying to hide his own smile.

Gretchen's heart fluttered when she saw the boyish smirk on his face. "No, it's German, actually. But my mom's mom's name is _Greetje_ and my mom hated her too much to name _me_ _Greetje_ but she was too scared of her not to at least give me a derivative-sounding name. At least that's what I think."

"Uh huh?"

"So...Instead of being Amy or Sarah, I got to be Gretchen."

Michael glanced at her. "You don't sound too pleased about it. It is an awfully unique name, you know?"

"If I wanted to be unique, I'd...I dunno...like, learn to ride a unicycle...or-"

Michael cut her off with a laugh. Gretchen basked quietly in the afterglow of his laughter before he began to speak again. "Well, tough luck, kid. You're already unique. With or without a unique name."

Gretchen swallowed hard. "How's that?"

He inhaled as if to brace himself for a lengthy recitation. "You're bold, you go out on a limb for people that don't deserve it, you're smart but you don't act better than anyone, you're a knockout..." So much for not blushing. "And that's just the stuff I know about so far."

She wondered if he meant to throw a wrench in their conversation by flattering her into involuntary muteness. That string of accolades would keep her awake for hours that night, she knew it. She was simultaneously dreading and looking forward to staring at the ceiling that night, waiting for sleep to come.

 

 

"Peter Dabuque, fifty three, long time resident of Tongva Hills, and a slightly bigger fish than Don Price, though uh, nothing we can't handle."

Michael tried to keep one ear on Lester's droning, but he was finding it hard to keep his attentions where they were meant to be. He was watching her bored face from where he stood behind she and Lester. Her features were illuminated by Lester's computer screen. They were definitely spending too much time together, he decided. If she had been a regular crew member, if she'd been capable of handling a gun or hacking a federal agency's mainframe or any other number of things that would make her valuable to him, he would see her the day of the heist, long enough to tell her what to do and to do his part alongside her. No more no less.

But she wasn't a regular crew member. Wasn't even remotely criminal as far as he could tell. Even so, he wasn't exactly taking pains to avoid her. No, if anything, he was going out of his way to see her and _that_ was what _really_ bothered him. He'd been the one to volunteer to go and pick her up to secure her punctuality, as a matter of fact. And now here he was, staring at her, pondering her. _I thought the Dutch were supposed to be tall and blonde. She's not tall or blonde. Maybe she takes after her father or something. Maybe that's why she's doing this. Because enough of her father's tendencies sneaked into her personality and so-  
_

"Oh my God," Gretchen exclaimed as her face fell. She covered her now-gaping mouth with her hand and shook her head. "Oh my God," she repeated, stepping away from the desk.

Michael sprung to alertness walking to the monitor to see what she was seeing. Lester had pulled up a picture of the target and was now staring at Gretchen queerly. "What's the problem, kid?" Michael asked her.

"I can't hit that guy. No way...I...I know him," she said, her voice growing quieter with each syllable.

"Why the fuck not?" Lester asked pointedly.

She opened her mouth to answer but then hesitated. She looked to Michael then with that vague sense of pleading in her eyes again. That look she had given him so many times. "I know him. Personally, I mean. He's in the program, too. He and I have the same home group."

"Home group?" Michael said.

"It's the place where you usually go to meetings. You can find meetings all over the city, but your home group is where you go on the regular. And _he's_ in mine. Peter D. I'd know him anywhere. He hits on _all_ the women."

Michael sighed but Lester didn't seem too bothered by her revelation. "I don't see the problem here, Gretchen. I mean if anything, this is even more opportune. You already have his trust, correct?"

Gretchen dropped her hands from her face and glared incredulously at Lester. "Yeah, I do. Which is half the reason I can't go through with it, Smash."

"What the hell are you talking about, Gretchen?" Lester asked angrily, wheeling around to look at her. "The _most_ ideal scenario is playing out right before us and you _can't go through with it?"_

Gretchen was nervously biting the tip of her finger. "I'm not even supposed to know his name for fuck sake, much less where he lives or works. It's Narcotics _Anonymous,_ jackass!"

Lester began chuckling coldly. He took his glasses off and squeezed the bridge of his nose. His condescension made Michael want to punch his teeth in. "You're telling me that you can't help us take down a corrupt capitalist pig fucker that wants nothing more than to see me and Michael strung up by our toes because of your undying loyalty to a religious cult masquerading as a drug treatment program?" he shouted at her.

Michael immediately looked to Gretchen. Her face fell into a confusing scowl. He couldn't tell if she was angry or sad, but he was suddenly worried that Lester had crossed a line. That he had humiliated and berated her to the point of tears. He was immediately pissed. "For fuck sake, Lester!" Michael said, starting for him. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he didn't get the opportunity to find out. He felt a hand touch his chest and he looked down to see a dry-eyed Gretchen shaking her head no at him. He quickly retreated and walked to the other side of the room to avoid breaking Lester's jaw.

Gretchen's expression had turned calm, if not a little cold. She looked at Lester and cleared her throat and, in one breath, delivered her rebuttal. "Everyone in my family is either dead, in prison, or refuses to acknowledge my existence. None of my friends know where I go every Tuesday night because I haven't told any of them that I'm in recovery _._ _Sooo,_ the only place where I can go and talk to people that care about me and my well-being about thething I really want to do but that I know ruined my life and might one day kill me if I give into my desire for it are the people in that _cult_ that you hate so much. It's the only thing that's sacred to me. So excuse the fuck out of me if I want to protect that, _Lest."_ She exhaled at the end of her tirade, which had become more venomous as she had gone on. She shifted on her feet and her voice got calm again. "Besides, if anything happens to him, it could come back to me. They subpoena twelve-step places all the time."

With that, she walked out of the room. The front door slammed a second later. Michael got down in Lester's face. "Why, why, _why_ do you fuck with her like that, Lest? What is it about her that makes you want to push her fucking buttons, huh?" he barked. Lester's expression fell somewhere between remorseful and exasperated. He looked up at Michael. "What is it? Do you hate her?"

Lester sighed. "I don't hate her, Michael." He wheeled back away from Michael and toward the door. Michael reached down and pulled his parking break.

"What is it, then?"

Lester was visibly irritated at the gesture before pondered this for a moment. "She is so...beautiful," Lester said, making a fist. "She is so beautiful and her body works and she has half a brain in her head and she...fucking squandered it, Michael! To chase a... _fucking high._ "

Michael was taken aback by Lester's sudden decision to be candid. And also utterly confused at what Lester was trying to tell him.

"You're pissed at her for something that she did when she was still practically a kid? Something that she's spent the better part of a decade tryin' to fix?"

Lester guffawed and wheeled back around to face Michael. "Do you know who she would be if she hadn't taken up with drug dealers? If she'd gone to a four-year school and taken a five minute break from _hating herself?_ She could have had everything! She could have been one of the women who doesn't notice guys like me until one of us runs over her patent leather pumps in line at Bean Machine! But instead, she works for chicken feed taking care of home bounds and hermits!"

Michael didn't think he could be more stunned. "You're telling me you resent her because you _can't_ _hate her?"_

 _"No!_ I mean, kind of?"

Michael exhaled sharply through his nose. He'd known Lester for a long time. And he was suddenly aware of what this was all about. He'd never been comfortable with women. Now, he sure as shit wouldn't turn down a lap dance or a roll with a stranger. Back in those early days, they'd all indulged in that kind of thing. They might end up in a dark strip club after a good score and Lester was always the first to shove a tenner in a dancer's g-string. But women like Gretchen were the kind that terrified him. The ones that didn't want anything from him. He just didn't know what to do with someone like her and so he responded with cruelty.

"You listen to me, Lest. You're going to apologize to her. You're going to stop telling her that the things that are important to her are stupid and you are going to get over your weird fuckin' hang up. You're going to take an interest in her life, and if she wants to sit this one out, you're going to say 'Okay, Gretchen. I understand,' and you're going to come up with another plan. Ya got me?"

In an uncharacteristic show of deference, Lester rolled his eyes, sighed again, and said "Okay."

When Michael opened the door to the house, he saw Gretchen's back to him where she sat on the porch. He walked down the steps and turned to look at her. She had a weary look in her eye. She was slouched over, cupping her chin in her hand. The blue tint to the world that the early evening always brought this time of the year made her eyes look even more radiant even though she was wearing her bored scowl.

"Lester has something to say to you," Michael said gesturing behind her to where Lester waited on the porch. He was standing now, leaning against his cane. Gretchen followed his gaze, turning her upper-body to look at Lester.

"I'm sorry, Gretchen. It was wrong of me to call your treatment program a cult. And I completely understand why you don't want to do this job and I respect your decision." While it sounded totally rehearsed, Michael knew that it was sincere and he suspected that Gretchen did, too because now she was rising to her feet to face Lester. She walked two steps toward him.

"I'll do it," she said quietly.

"You will?" Michael and Lester said simultaneously, with equal surprise.

"But only because I want to take him out of circulation if he's really as dangerous as you say," she said sheepishly.

"You'd really be helping me...I mean, _us_ out, Gretch," Lester replied. "Speaking of which, you never told me what you want for doing this."

Gretchen stared back blankly. "What I want?" she asked.

"Yeah, your terms of completion. Your payment. We never discussed it."

Gretchen continued to stare until she narrowed her eyes and looked to the side. She reached into her bag, laying on the pavement and she pulled out a pamphlet. She walked to Lester and wordlessly handed it to him. Lester examined it with a befuddled look. Michael walked back up the steps to see what she'd given him. _"Clear Horizons Assisted Living Community,"_ he said, reciting the text from the pamphlet. He looked up at Gretchen with narrowed eyes. Holding up the pamphlet, he said "What do you want me to do with this? It's an old folks home in Carcer City."

Gretchen had a look of bashful nervousness on her face, looking a bit like a scared child. "My oma lives in this flophouse in Carcer City. Shady Acres." She gestured to the pamphlet. "You think you could get her into a nice place like that?"

"Oma...Means 'grandmother,' correct?" Lester asked. Gretchen nodded slowly, silently. "And you want me to arrange to have her brought to Clear Horizons?" She nodded again, more quickly this time. "That's it?" Another eager nod. "Alright," Lester said tenuously. He looked at Michael then. Michael raised his eyebrows at him expectantly. Lester returned his gaze to Gretchen. "You and your grandmother...you're close?"

"She hates me," Gretchen shot back tersely, visibly deflating any hope Lester had of heeding Michael's advice to take an interest in her. "But she deserves better than Shady Acres. I'm ready to go over the plan for Peter D.," she said, quickly stepping past Lester into the house.

Michael and Lester were left to stare at one another. Neither one of them said anything, but she had effectively proven Lester's point about her. Of all the things that she could have asked for, money or a bigger place or for Lester to get fucking air conditioning, she asked for that. Michael himself didn't want to attribute her request to self hatred as Lester would, but there was no denying how disquieting it was that she hadn't been more selfish. She was working with criminals. She didn't need to feign moral superiority with them. Thinking about it was beginning to hurt Michael's head. He stepped to Lester and placed a firm hand on his shoulder in a _you tried, buddy_ kind of a way.

"You heard the lady, Lest. Let's get planning."

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys. So, I don't know what the feeling is around these parts on TRIGGER WARNINGS, but I'm erring on the side of caution and issuing one for anyone who has past traumas relating to violence or drug use. Don't worry, it's gonna be okay, but I don't want to cause my sensitive readers any upset.

Nine a.m., Wednesday morning. The day of part deux of _Operation Undermine Merryweather's Ability to Irreparably Fuck Up the Lives of San Andreas' Undesirables._ For some reason, ever since Amanda had left again and taken her removable shower massage from hers and Michael's bathroom, the water pressure in there had been hinky. About a third of the time, when Michael turned the shower on, the fucking thing would dribble out water, but wouldn't produce enough force for anything that even _remotely_ resembled a shower for an adult. This was one of the days when it wasn't cooperating.

He sighed agitatedly and grabbed his towel from the top of the shower door and walked into the guest bath out in the hallway. He threw the towel over the shower curtain pole and began to disrobe. Something caught his eye from the vanity all of a sudden. When he looked up, he saw it. A lacy, white bra. He swallowed when he saw it. He picked it up and examined it. Gretchen had left it there the night that they'd taken care of Don Price. She'd been so exhausted by the time they got back that night, that she must have forgotten to _put it back on her body._ At least, he hoped that she'd forgot. Or maybe he hoped that she hadn't merely forgot.

Christ. It was beginning to feel like she was everywhere. At first, it was okay but now when he would putz around his house, sipping whiskey and listening to his footsteps echoing across the rooms, he would suddenly think of her in that tiny, dark apartment in that iffy neighborhood. Like, she might be on her couch reading a magazine or something and then _bam_ someone's broken down her front door. Or he would start being honest with himself about the danger they were putting her in. How they were getting their filthy, bloody hand prints all over her. How even if he told her so, she wouldn't listen. Wouldn't flee. Because she didn't seem to have any self-preservation instincts. They must have been washed out of her in her using days.

He felt like he needed to do something about it, though he didn't know what. There was nothing in his gut telling him that it couldn't wait another day, but that didn't count for dick. If his intuition was worth anything, his family might still be in tact. Even so, he figured, today wouldn't be the day. He'd be there, hovering as close as he could just like he had last time. And hoping.

 

 

The dress was black. More conservative than the last (though that was saying very little). She could wear a bra with it, at least. And she wasn't afraid of showing the world her panties if she shifted just so. The rendezvous point, however, if you wanted to call it that, was decidedly less conservative than the Richman Tea Room, sleazy as that place was trying not to be. Tonight, Peter D. was set to camp out at a skanky singles martini bar in Vinewood.

Gretchen was nervous. Again, she was sitting in Michael's car waiting for him to say the right thing to make her feel better about it all. Because this time was going to be different. This bar cranked the music up so that the lonely hearts had to lean in close to talk to one another. It was a kind of petri dish for sexual congress. It was too loud for the transmitter that she had used last time to be of any use.  So instead of relying on her magic barrette to alert her cohorts of any danger, she had to rely on a kind of choreography to get Peter Dabuque where they needed him to go. She was instructed to bring him to a corner on Spanish Avenue, near his paid parking space where they would surprise him. She was to do so no later than 11:30. Ugh.

"Once you get about thirty yards from the pick up point, try to stay out of the streetlights if you can," Michael said flatly. That was another thing. He was being weirdly cold today and she didn't know why but she also didn't know if it was permissible or prudent to ask him why. "The car Frank'll be driving is a forest green Landstalker, but remember to get close enough to make sure it's the right one since it will be a little too dark for you to tell for sure."

"Okay?"

"I'm not going to hear what's going on, so if you need me and we get separated or something, go somewhere more quiet and call me."

"Right," she said quietly. _That sounds just swell, dad,_ she thought to herself. She was mentally applauding what she thought was her own cleverness in thinking up that private joke when she noticed that he'd fallen quiet and turned to see him staring at her. "What?" she asked softly. He sawed his teeth across his bottom lip and narrowed his eyes at her. It made her heart hammer in her chest and if she hadn't had a sense of what was meant by appropriate timing, she might have kissed him just then. "You're making me nervous." And that was true, but it was an omission for her not to mention that the nervousness was also being adulterated with a horniness that was most definitely _not_ appropriately timed.

Michael reached across her and put his hand between her feet on the floor. His head was almost in  her lap. The movement startled her and she shoved backward in the seat. A moment later he pulled something out from under the seat. She locked eyes with him as he sat back upright. "I have something for you," he said. Her eyes moved to what he held in his hand. It was a gun.

"Michael, what the hell?"

"It's just a precaution, Gretch. Most likely, you won't have to use it. I'm gonna be in there with you for most of this, hanging back and watching until Frank needs me at the pickup point but when we're apart, if something happens, you'll need protection."

Gretchen was plastered against the passenger side door now. She wasn't terribly fond of guns. Her trepidation wasn't without precedent. "Michael, I can't shoot a gun. I don't know the first thing about those fucking things-"

Michael held the gun up to her and began a more rugged, haphazard version of a pre-flight safety demonstration. The gun was the oxygen mask in this scenario. "This is a semiautomatic pistol. It's double action and the magazine's already in there. If you need to use it, just flick the slide-lock, yank the slide _hard_ , and pull the trigger. That's all you need to know for now. I'll teach you more when I take you to the range."

"Huh?" Gretchen found her head swimming all of a sudden.

"Flick the slide-lock, yank the-"

"Michael!" she almost shouted. She squeezed her eyes shut. "You've hardly looked my way or spoken two words to me since we left your place. And then you pull out a gun? What the hell am I supposed to do with that?"

Michael put the gun in its holster and shoved it into Gretchen's purse before he looked at her. "Nothing's up, Gretch. I'm just taking precautions."

"Your precautions include treating me like a goddamn ghost and then handing me a deadly weapon?"

He flinched at her words but quickly composed himself long enough to holster the gun and shove it into her bag. He sighed and opened his mouth to speak, hesitating for a split second. "Yeah, Gretchen, my precautions include treating you like a ghost. You know why? 'Cause you don't belong here. You never did. You're too good for-"

"Oh, save it, man," she spat before she got out of the car. She slammed the door and immediately started walking down the sidewalk toward the bar.

She heard his door shut, too and a moment later, he was at her heels. "Come on, Gretchen."

"I don't want to hear this shit, Michael."

He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to the side of the walk way, turning her to face him. "That's too bad 'cause you're gonna hear it anyway," he snapped. She leaned back away from him but quickly acquiesced to his imposing frame as he moved well into her personal space and looked down at her. "Can you not make me the bad guy here?"

"I'm not making you the bad guy. You're making _yourself_ the secretive, fickle guy and I'm already tired of it."

"I'm just looking out for you."

"I thought I was supposed to be looking out for you," she returned. She held her arms out. "I thought that's what this was all about. What's different?"

Michael backed away, agitated now. He turned his back on her for a split second. His hand was on his hip. He spun back around to meet her, moving seamlessly back into her space, pointing a finger in her face. "Don't make me answer that, Gretchen. You already know that answer to that and making _me_ say it out loud really will make me the bad guy. So just don't."

Gretchen mulled that over for a moment. She found herself unable to look at him all of a sudden so she looked at his feet instead. At his fancy Italian shoes. Such a yup. And now he couldn't be straight with her. She didn't know what she'd seen in him before but it was gone. Crushed under his shiny black loafers. Or so she let herself believe for all of ten seconds.

She looked back up at him. It was dark out here on this street but his eyes were still showing the most penetrating blue. And they were moving easily up and down over her body. She steadied herself by placing a hand on the building at her side. He looked like he wanted to say something. _Please say it,_ she thought before she assured herself _I'm not going to touch him._

And the fluidity and surety of what she said to him next surprised even her. "Think about everything you've done in your life and then take some time to think about why it is that _I_ scare you," she told him, pointing to herself. She turned around and headed for the bar, and this time she didn't hear his footsteps behind her.

 

 _"Gretchen E.,"_ came Peter's greeting. Or at least, that's what Gretchen saw him mouth at her. The music was a titch too loud for her to hear. She walked closer to him and leaned in.

"Hi Peter," she said.

She let him look her up and down, biting his lip and shaking his head. He wasn't a bad looking older man. He still had a full head of flaxen hair and evenly tanned skin. What made guys like him _unattractive_ to Gretchen was their tendency to do everything they could to lie to themselves about their ages. He never hit on anyone older than thirty five and, on several occasions, she had heard him blasting Love Fist from his overpriced sound system in his overpriced car. It was a little desperate. He leaned in toward her. "I've never seen you in a dress," he said. He flashed her a toothy grin. "You're always wearing baggy t-shirts and ripped jeans at meetings."

Gretchen gave him her best shy smile. "We're not at a meeting now," she said.

"No, we are not," he said, bouncing the syllables. He looked down at the drink in his hand. "You're not going to tell on me, are you?"

"Not if you get me one."

"Coming right up!"

For the next hour and a half, Gretchen sat leaned in close to Peter, trying to flash him just the right about of cleavage and pretending that everything he said was the most interesting thing she'd every heard. In reality, behind her vacant stare, she was trying to mentally untie the residual knots in her stomach from her conversation with Michael. She was dying to know what it was that he couldn't say to her. She was eighty percent sure that he wanted to confess a (mutually felt) attraction for her but then again, it could have been something else. After all, she'd spent so much of her adult life trying to convince herself that, no, she did not have the words _absentee father_ tattooed on her forehead. What's to say she'd been wasting her time in doing so?

"So, what's the story, sugar? You got a split personality or something?" Peter asked her, flashing his impossibly white teeth at her again.

"Sorry?"

He touched her knee as he leaned toward her again. "You come to our meetings every week hiding under those rags and then you show up here looking like a duchess of a small principality. What's that all about?"

"Are you complaining?"

"Christ, no! I wish I'd known before that you've got a body under that stuff. I'da taken you out sooner!"

"Is that was this is? You taking me out?"

"Is it?"

Jesus. This guy's mouth didn't write checks his clothes and car couldn't cash. He was fast and, while she was loathe to admit it to herself, a dash more charming than she had realized. Good thing she could see through his bullshit. A more impressionable young woman might have fallen for his schtick. She was performing a public service keeping this guy away from the other women in here, she decided. She looked up at the clock. 11:17.

"You can take me out of here. If you want," she said, tucking her shoulders in shyly but also trying to give him enough of a show to entice him.

"You got it," he said, shamelessly gorging his eyes on her tits. "I gotta make a stop first, though. Come with me out back real quick," he said, grabbing her hand.

She didn't have time to protest and all of the protestations that she was formulating in her mind would definitely make him suspicious. He obviously knew his way around this place, which creeped her out majorly. Only people in their early twenties were supposed to know how to get into a bar's alleyway.

They walked down a few empty, caddywhompus hallways until they arrived at a steel fire door. They pushed through it, Peter still gripping Gretchen's upper arm. Peter looked up and down the alley. Gretchen did, too, trying to orient herself to where she was because this whole thing had suddenly turned shady as fuck.

Just when she thought it couldn't get anymore squicky, Peter whistled toward the darkened part of the alley. It was a bird call. A loon, perhaps. _I need to leave this place,_ Gretchen's inner voice told her. Suddenly, a smallish man who was positively drowning in his own clothing came from behind a dumpster. He was skinny and short, a little shorter than even Gretchen in her heels. His skin was mottled and he wore an impatient scowl. _I ought to go right this second._

"Who's the chick?" said the little guy in a scratchy, hushed voice. "She cool?"

"She's my companion for the evening, Ruko. Give me an ounce of the good stuff." Almost as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Peter palmed a small foil ball and Ruko had pocketed some bunched up bills that Peter had in his pocket. There were no goodbyes exchanged. Ruko's form simply bled back into the darkness. It was surreal. _Was this how it was when I was still using?_ Gretchen wondered to herself. She couldn't remember.

Peter broke into his party favors and did a bump off of his little finger, not neglecting to rub some of it on his gums. He sniffed feverishly and shook his head before he offered some to Gretchen. It didn't immediately register that he was asking her to get high with him.

"No, that's alright," she said flatly.

He continued to sniff. Gretchen noticed then that his eyes had become glassy. "Why not, baby?" He kept the bump on his finger and pocketed the rest of it as he stepped to her. He pulled her into him by her waist and she immediately became aware of his raging erection pressed against her thigh. "Don't you wanna get this party started?" he asked licking his lips.

"I, er-"

"Just a little bump."

"I don't use anymore, Peter," she said quietly, still hyperaware of his arousal pressed into her leg. "I'll pass."

She looked up at him then. His face was unreadable. He looked her dead in the eye and snorted the white powder himself before he let go of her and backed away. And that's when the coke decided to light a fire under his ass. He turned to her.

"You think you're better than me, _Gretchen E.?"_ he said with an annoying and odd emphasis on her name.

Gretchen felt her eyes widen involuntarily. "No!" she said immediately.

"You do! You think you're better than me!"

"Peter, I don't-"

"Well let me tell _you_ something, you little slut...You might fool everyone in N.A. with your ne'er do well college cutie bullshit, but I know the truth and so do you!" he yelled at her. He had begun pacing and, Gretchen feared, was now being swallowed up in some weird non-sequitur, drug-induced break with reality. 

She reached into her purse and felt for the gun. It wasn't hard to find. It was the heaviest thing in there. "Let's just calm down, Peter. I wasn't passing judgment..."

"You're still using," he accused.

"What?" she barked back, startled by her own defensiveness. "No, I'm not!"

"You are!" he said, walking a tight circle around her. Gretchen was trying to unsheath the gun, now. But she was woefully unfamiliar with the design of the holster. Or any holster for that matter. "Oh, I remember now," Peter continued with a joyless laugh. "You don't like nose candy. No, ma'am. You like to chase the dragon."

Gretchen continued to fumble around the gun with her now trembling fingers. But Peter yanked her arm out of her purse and began to inspect the inside of it, surprisingly saying nothing about her obvious attempt to get something from her bag. "If I wanted to use, I could save myself the trouble and get it from someone in my apartment building, Peter. Now, stop it," Gretchen breathed out as he grabbed her other arm and looked it over the way he had the other.

"These are all healed over," he said to himself with an inquisitive-sounding hum. Gretchen looked down at her barely visible track mark scars. She yanked her arm away.

"I told you!" she said angrily.

She could tell from the look in his eye that he wasn't satisfied. And that look quickly morphed into something predatory. Her legs instinctively launched her into a run in the other direction, but she didn't get three steps before her hopped up mark-turned-attacker grabbed her by her middle. Seemingly unconcerned by the fact that they were outdoors and in public, he shoved her toward the ground. She caught herself on the edge of the dumpster and avoided face planting into the pavement, but she slipped the remaining foot and landed on her back.

Peter caught her legs and pulled her shoes off, one after the other before he began yanking her tights off of her. She struggled and writhed. "Get off of me you motherfucker!" she yelled, hoping that it was loud enough for someone from the street to hear. She managed to flip over onto her stomach and began to grasp for her bag, which was just out of reach.

"Nobody makes a fool of me!" he yelled as he gripped her legs tighter...

 

"Give it a minute. Maybe her clock is off," Franklin assured Michael. Michael was in the back seat of the SUV looking out the windows, waiting for Gretchen to appear with Dabuque. He was trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Her clock is the same as ours, Frank."

"Well, she ain't exactly famous for punctuality, is she?" Franklin said.

"Yeah," Michael said, trailing off. "Look, I think we should flip around and head toward the bar. Drive the route they'd be taking. Take it slow and we if we spot 'em, we'll circle back around."

"You sure, man? What if she's on her way and we miss her."

"I'm sure Frank."

They crept along slowly. The foot traffic was pretty thin. It was neither a weekend nor was it peak hours, so there was plenty in the way of visibility. Every twosome sauntering down the sidewalk grabbed their attention, but nothing. They paid no mind to the fact that they were disrupting traffic this way. Michael scanned three-sixty from his seat in the back. Nothing.

They circled around the block and then back to their post, never deviating from the beaten path. "Frank, drop me in front of the bar. They must still be in there," he said. Yeah, that must have been it. He would walk into the bar and see that Gretchen's hands had been too full with a drunk Peter Dabuque for her to be on time at the pick up point.

As they neared the bar, it seemed that some magic hour had begun. Traffic had beefed up on the boulevard. Most of the cars were moving at a snail's pace. "Fuck this," Franklin muttered, cranking his wheel and hanging a right to a more deserted side street. He pulled into the alley and that's when Michael heard Frank speak again, startled. "Oh, fuck!"

A ways down the alleyway, it was just silhouettes at first. A lanky guy in a grey suit trying to wrangle a petite woman in a black cocktail dress where she lay on the ground, her legs twisting in his grasp. She was on her stomach, writhing and kicking, intermittently trying to beat him away with one fist. Michael didn't need to tell Franklin twice to gun it. He accelerated quickly, closing the space between themselves and Gretchen's peril in three seconds. Franklin braked hard. Gretchen was the only one of the two to notice.

Michael jumped out of the car and bee lined it for Dabuque, who noticed him only at the last moment before Michael punched him as hard as he could in the face. He could feel his bone crunching beneath his knuckle. Dabuque went down like a ton of bricks. Michael immediately picked him up and slammed him against the wall and bore into his half-busted face with his eyes.

"You okay?" he heard Franklin ask behind him.

"Yeah," Gretchen said, breathily.

He was about to crush Dabuque's windpipe when he felt Franklin's hand on his shoulder. "She's a'ight, Mike." It wasn't lost on Michael that Franklin was trying to placate him. Trying to keep him from breaking the guy's neck right there. He saw another figure appear in his periphery. He turned to meet it. It was Gretchen. She looked vaguely frightened standing there, gripping her shoes to her chest. She looked between Michael and Dabuque. 

"Michael?" she whimpered. She wasn't scared because of what Dabuque had just tried to pull with her. She was frightened of what he was about to do to Dabuque.

It was then that Dabuque began to stammer through his busted lip. He was dribbling blood onto Michael's sleeve. "Don't take me back to Pleasant Pathways! I won't go! You can tell my bitch wife to-"

"Shove it!" Michael screamed at the obviously disoriented man. He looked back to Gretchen, whose face had softened but still wore a wide-eyed expression. Michael pulled Dabuque away from the wall by the collar and shoved him into Franklin, who caught him without faltering. "Get this fuck outta my sight. We'll let Trevor deal with him," he said through labored breaths. They were labored not from exertion, but from pure, animalistic rage.

Franklin didn't hesitate. He pulled Dabuque to the side. He opened the rear door and shoved him in. "Get in there, motherfucker!" He turned to Michael. "I'll call you and let you know what's up."

"Great, great," Michael huffed out, waving him off. Franklin hopped into the still-running car and drove away before they could be spotted, leaving Gretchen and Michael in the alley. He couldn't bring himself to look at her again right away. They were both silent for a minute while he paced anxiously about. He leaned against the wall, still breathing hard. After a moment he felt her hand on his shoulder. He turned to look at her. She looked back, puzzled, nervous, and any number of other things.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," she said, quietly but firmly.

He took the opportunity to look her over, checking for signs of...anything. Anything that he could fix or obsess over, but she didn't seem to have a scratch on her. Weirder yet, she didn't seem shaken up at all considering what had just happened to her. She seemed more concerned about _him._

"Jesus Christ, Gretch...That guy, he was about to-"

He cut himself off, unable to bring himself to say what he was thinking. Gretchen's face began to morph into one of understanding, as though she had just realized what he was trying to tell her. But she shook her head in the negative.

"No, Michael-"

"That should _not_ have happened. We shouldn't have even let it get that far..."

"Mike-" she began, still shaking her head.

"That's it, baby. You're out. We're not doing this again. Not like this-"

Gretchen broke his mania suddenly when he felt her take his chin in her hand, pressing her thumb into his lips to silence him. She seemed as surprised by it as he was. "He was looking for track marks," she said quietly. She let her thumb off of his mouth, but she didn't back away.

"What?"

"He was trying to check between my toes for track marks. New ones."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "So he wouldn't feel so alone," she said after a moment, a question hanging in her voice. "He fell off the wagon. We were out here in the alley so he could buy coke." Michael followed her with his eyes as she walked to the dumpster and used it to steady herself so that she could slip her shoes back on. When she was done she walked back to him. She grabbed his arm. "You ruined your coat," she said, looking at the blood stain.

"I don't give a flying fuck about my coat," he said. His tone was softer than what might be expected. "You sure you're okay?" She immediately nodded in response. It was obvious that she wanted him to drop it but she wouldn't come right out and say it. "I'm gonna take you home, now."

He was too keyed up to realize that she wasn't in danger anymore. Nobody was going to swoop out of the sky and snatch her up like a hawk and there was no such thing as predators materializing from the pavement or the walls that surrounded them. Even so, he tucked her under his arm before he steered her out of that alleyway, toward his car. And she didn't try to stop him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so I realize that this chapter might have gotten a little overwrought with the unspoken passion bullshit (don't get me wrong, that's what I live for), so if you think that this disrupts the flow of the story, I apologize and I hope that you'll let me know and forgive me. Um, what else? Oh yeah, a note on the gun stuff: I am not a gun enthusiast but my American boyfriend is. And while he is a lovely person, he quickly became incredibly impatient with my inability to grasp anything from the little crash course he gave me in small firearms, so please forgive my ignorance in that area. I hope it doesn't ruin this chapter too much for any of you who might be gun lovers.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter felt like it took forever and a day to write and when I reviewed it, I was sure that it was going to be ridiculously long. But actually, it's fairly short for how wordy I like to get. And then I remembered, writing smut always takes me a thousand years because I want to get it right :P Oh, yeah, spoiler alert/caution, this chapter contains sex.

The first part of the day had been pretty ho-hum. Gretchen entered Lester's house at 7 a.m., quietly so as not to disturb him. She did some washing up until he emerged from his room at 9ish and then she wordlessly made him breakfast, and then lunch, which she brought to him in his lair. She checked and recorded his breath capacity twice. She pulled dinner out of the oven at 4:40 and left at 5:00, as soon as it had cooled.

But for all the monotony that the day had promised and delivered, her mind was doing a frantic, almost vulgar round of gymnastics as she took  inventory of her life. Of the events of the past several weeks. And as soon as she got home and put her groceries away and took her shower and slipped on her pale pink sundress, she found herself sitting on the edge of her bed, having entered an anomic stasis. It was shitty feeling. One of those _I don't know what to do with myself but everything I'm thinking of doing will spell my destruction_ type states. Normally, she would have headed to a meeting, but after what had happened with Peter, the home group meeting space had been sullied and she didn't know how to cleanse it. So here she was, sitting on her bed's edge, staring at a darkening wall. And then she spotted it. On the bureau by the door. The gun. It was only a spot of grey and black until she reached over to the bedside table and slipped on her glasses.

 

 

 She had meant to give it back to Michael but she had been more focused on the weight of his arm around her than she had been on the weight of the fucking thing in her purse and she had forgotten about it until she remembered. She stared at it now. One might even say that she was meditating on it in her way. Too bad it was yielding her jack shit in the way of enlightenment.

**_When_** _I take you to the range,_ he had said. She searched and searched her mind for the meaning in that, beyond the obvious. She turned it over in her mind. He was speaking of the future, which meant that he was presuming that they would continue to know each other in one capacity or another. He handed it to her knowing full well what it could do, which meant that he trusted her with it. He knew that she couldn't ignore its presence, which meant that he knew that she would be consistently reminded of it and therefore him, and fuck him, who the fuck did he think he was toying with her psyche like that? Didn't he know what a shitty idea it was to fuck with someone who was trying to expel their demons?

"It has to go back," she said aloud to herself.

To drive from East Vinewood to Rockford Hills was to traverse an entire universe in truth. The vast differences in classes, temperaments, sensibilities, and sanity contained within Vineweird gave way to the sterile, oppressive symmetry of Rockford Hills. It was a drive that Gretchen had rarely had reason to take. Now, having watched bastards, thieves, and saints of every stripe out her window, Gretchen's cocksure determination to give Michael what for had all but diminished. She pulled up to the curb outside his gated estate and waited. She cut the engine and looked to the gun in the passenger seat which, for some reason didn't look like such an insult anymore.

She always did this. She would get an intense, short-lived desire to correct some perceived slight or wrong in the universe and then she would quickly renege. No follow through. It wasn't too late to turn around, she reasoned. He hadn't seen her. Despite her misgivings, she found herself putting the gun in her bag and stepping out of the car.

First she knocked, then she rang the door bell. Then she paced and waited for a couple minutes and then she looked and wondered if the sun had been that low when she'd pulled up to the house. His car was there in the drive way. She didn't remember him having any other cars parked out there when she'd visited before. Okay, this was a sign, she should definitely leave.

But she didn't leave. She found herself walking around back. And that's when she saw him, sitting outside his French doors at a table, smoking a cigarette and swirling whiskey around in a rocks glass. "Knock knock," she said. He looked up from his glass.

"Gretchen," he said, standing.

"I rang the doorbell," she said, gesturing inside.

He stubbed out his cigarette and walked to her. "I thought it was those religious types. They've been makin' the rounds this past week," he said. He walked closer and stared down at her. She felt her face get hot.

"I can't stay," she said quickly, shoving her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"No?" Michael asked.

She looked at his shoulder, trying to avoid looking right at him. Suddenly she felt silly and childish and small in her pale pink sundress and glasses. What the hell was she doing here? She reached into her bag and pulled out the gun by the barrel but holding it out to him with both hands. "I came to give this back."

Michael looked at it as though he didn't know what it was. "I don't want it back. I gave it to you," he said matter-of-factly.

Gretchen cocked her head at him and put on pleading eyes. "I can't keep it, Michael. I-it's-so...It's too weird," she stammered. "Please take it back."

Michael squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. He looked down his nose at her. "No."

She didn't think that she'd heard him correctly. "Excuse me?"

"I said no."

"What do you mean _no,_ Michael?"

"I'm not taking it back," he said. He picked up his whiskey glass and Gretchen could swear that he was puffing his chest out at her just then. He cocked an eyebrow as he took a swig.

"Yes, you are," Gretchen said, nodding at him as though she was speaking to a child.

"Nope."

"Why the fuck not?" Gretchen barked at him.

He walked around behind her and got a mite close to her ear. "I told you. If I didn't want you to have it, I wouldn't have given it to you." He straightened back up and gave her her space again, but she could still feel his eyes on her. That fire that she'd had in her belly back at her place was back. She walked stiffly to the patio table and set it down before turning around and striding by him. "Oh, no-ho-ho," he said with an empty chuckle, catching her by the arm.

"Let me go, Michael."

"I know what this is about." His voice was quiet but cold-sounding.

"Ugh," she groaned, rolling her eyes. "Stop!"

"You're worried that if you take the gun, it puts you on the hook for somethin'."

Gretchen threw her head back and sighed like an insolent teenager. "No, I'm not," she whined. "I just don't want it in my house. Little kids in my neighborhood do B and E's all the time and I don't want one of those little fuckers finding it and-"

He released her arm and let out an agitated groan. He paced and pinched the bridge of his nose before he looked at her again. "You know, the other night, you were talkin' about _me_ being scared of _you._ And that got me thinking and _believe me,_ I thought about it long and hard but you know what?" He pointed a finger at her. She followed it with her eyes before she looked back into his steely eyes. _"You_ are the one that's scared, Gretchen. You're scared that taking that gun is going to keep me around and that one day, I'm gonna call on you to follow through with...this," he said, gesturing between the two of them.

Her mouth, which had been agape a moment before had snapped shut. Her first impulse was to argue with him, to tell him that he was deluded. But she couldn't do that. It would have been one of the biggest lies she had ever told. He was absolutely right. And now there he was, looking at her as though he could see the inside of her mind chewing on what he had just said.

Gretchen dropped her bag at her feet and walked toward him. She only had a split second to enjoy the sudden look of confusion that had replaced that smug expression of his before she grabbed the back of his neck with both hands and pulled his face to hers. And since he was apparently not expecting the kiss, he didn't lean down to make himself more accessible, forcing her to lean up on her tip toes to reach him, pressing her body into his.

She broke the kiss after a moment and stepped away from him, feeling very exposed all of a sudden. She crossed her arms across her belly and tugged nervously at her ear and looked anywhere but in his eyes. Still, she felt like she had proven her point. Whatever it had been. Michael stalked forward, pulled her in by her waist and kissed her again.  A proper kiss, not a one-sided, bluff-calling kiss.

It wasn't what she was expecting. And, yes, she had thought about it. A few times. She had envisioned his kiss as perhaps being rigid and perfunctory for some reason. But it wasn't. It was soft and sating and fucking brilliant. And so was his touch. As soon as she had her arms around his neck, pressing into him purely because her body goddamn felt like it, he was holding her.  _Really holding her._ He held her so good that she felt like she might float away if he took his hands off of her. And then it was hands all over and his mouth nibbling at her neck and Jesus Christ, how were they now on the staircase?

He leaned over her, compelling her up the stairs with that predatory glint in his eye. He pulled at the tie string straps on her sundress and pulled the bodice down and then he was kissing her chest and her stomach. Midway up the stairs, he kissed her again on the mouth. It was a contradictory kiss. It countered that sexy, terrifying hunger that he'd been showing a moment previous. The kiss was tender. More tender than any kiss she could call to memory. He took off her glasses and tucked them into his shirt pocket.

When they were in bed, he pulled her on top of him and put his hands up her skirt and inside her underwear while she unbuttoned him. And then her dress came off over her head. And then his pants. Her bra. And then they were both naked in the half-light. He kissed her breasts, shoving them into his mouth and it felt so good that her back arched involuntarily while she ran her fingers through his hair.

He let her take control first. She sighed and bit her lip as she felt him slide into her. She covered his hand that rested on her side with her own as he dug his fingers into her flesh. "Oh, fuck," he sighed. She was careful to go slow and shallow at first, just testing him, getting used to the feel. But it didn't take long for her to want more as every nerve ending in every erogenous zone seemed to be screaming for it. It was when she leaned back and braced herself with one hand on his knee behind her that she picked up the speed a bit and let him go deeper. He moaned quietly every few breaths and the sound of his voice brought her to the edge every time, dragging sighs and gasps and whimpers out of her against her will.

After many minutes of both of them edging, he was no longer content to let her take the lead on things. He kissed her deep again as he rolled over on top of her. He kissed her face and her neck nice and soft and slow before he began to thrust into her. He went slow at first, then faster. When he picked up the pace, she pulled her right knee up to her chest and, as predicted, it heightened the sensation for both of them. "Sweet mother of-" he began, cutting himself off with a sharp inhale.

Gretchen started to feel like she was about to come. There had been a lot of lingering eye contact up to this point but her neck muscles were relaxing and she involuntarily rolled her head to the side as she whimpered "Oh, God..." She was happy to let him keep doing what he was doing while she let herself become increasingly more oblivious to her surroundings. And that's what she did until he hit some magical gold vein of sex inside of her. She snapped her head back toward him, "Oh, God," she said loudly and without meaning to before she felt her cheek melt back into the mattress. She grabbed his wrist and bit her lip and bucked and moaned under him until a final shudder escaped her lips as she felt her body pulsing under him. _So. Fucking. Good,_ it told her.

She could feel him thrusting into her tenuously, now. A moment later she felt a little more like herself and she looked at him again. He seemed to take the meaning in her gaze and returned to a quick pace. His breathing picked up, followed by more moaning. Gretchen could see that he was close now, too. Really close. He was wincing. She grabbed his face. "Look at me when you come," came her soft command. She held his face in her hands. With that, his breaths came ragged with frenetic, shaky thrusts to match. His eyes narrowed and his mouth was open as he looked into her eyes for as long as he could before he couldn't hold himself up and his forehead collided with her collarbone. She felt one last spark of pleasure of her own as Michael came.

In the moment that followed, their bodies were stuck together with sweat as they both waited for their breath to come back to them. Michael withdrew and rolled over onto his back. They didn't touch each other right away, perhaps both sensing that it would be some strange overindulgence in one another. Gretchen stared at the ceiling. She suddenly realized that they were on the bed sideways and neither one of them had thought to put their heads by the headboard. She thought about how strange yet appropriate this was. How it almost felt perfect that in their fevered horniness, they had inadvertently situated themselves in an unorthodox manner on the bed. Because the two of them together was nothing if not fevered and unorthodox.

He reached over to her and she rolled over to her side and pressed her face into his shoulder. "I hate to be more of a cliche than I already am, but that is _not_ how I was expecting my night to go," he said with a light laugh. He sounded tired. Gretchen let a sedate, close-mouthed smile spread across her face as she closed her eyes and hummed in acknowledgment. 

"What did I interrupt?" she asked.

He laughed again. "Well, I would've probably downed two or three more glasses of liquor, at least..."

"Yeah?"

"And at some point, I would have fallen asleep in front of the T.V. watching some movie that I've seen a hundred times..."

"I'm sorry I interrupted such a lively evening," she said sarcastically. "I better let you get back to it." She rolled away from him, making like she was going to leave when he caught her arm and pulled her upper body on to his, planting another kiss on her as she giggled. 

"Nice try," he said, giving her ass a squeeze in between kisses. She broke the kiss, laid her head on his chest, and sighed. "What about you, huh? You were in a hurry to leave earlier. What are _you_ missing be here?" he asked her.

Gretchen moaned into his chest. Not a complaining moan. It was more of an accidental betrayal of the fact that she didn't want to think about it, but she was in far too honest a mood to be cagey just now. He'd just been inside her, after all. She didn't feel like she needed to hide from him. "I probably would have fallen asleep until one of my friends woke me up with a phone call asking me to join them at some new dive they'd found off of Vinewood Boulevard and I'd follow them there to make sure that they got home safe because I'm pathologically and ironically incapable of trusting people to take care of themselves."

"Hey, at least you're honest with yourself."

"Not entirely. Because tomorrow when I woke up in my empty bed in my empty apartment, I'd tell myself that I would never do it again."

"Well, then I guess it's good that you're waking up next to me instead," he said. He tilted her chin up and kissed her. She put her hand on the back of his neck and he went even deeper. And she was sort of relieved that he'd said that. Because normally, when she started fucking someone new, whether it was a one-off or a regular thing, she always had the compulsion to run away from the intimacy. Half the time, she'd get an angry text the next morning asking her why she ran off and she'd cop out by telling herself that she hadn't thought they'd wanted her to stay. She knew that that kind of behavior wouldn't fly with Michael, so she was oddly pleased that he'd stolen her get out of jail free card. When the kiss was broken again, Michael continued, "I hope you don't pledge not to do what we just did again, though. That ain't what I wanna hear."

Gretchen propped herself up on her elbow and looked down at him. "What _do_ you want to hear?"

Michael laced his fingers through her hair and stroked her head with his thumb. "Just that you're not gonna disappear if things start getting too hot for you. Talk to me first. If something goes wrong, I'd like the chance to try and make it right, ya know?"

Gretchen stared at him for a minute. It was strange because, while his language was vague, she knew what he was trying to say because of how he'd said it. "You want my trust."

"Bingo."

She lowered chin back down onto his chest, keeping her eyes on him. She traced circles on his chest with her finger. "Okay," she whispered.

When sleep found them, it would be uncharacteristically kind to both, almost as though they were being rewarded for finding companionship in one another, no matter how reckless or badly-timed. Maybe sadness had repelled the sleep. Maybe they'd both been waiting up for something but hadn't known. Whatever it was, their cares fell away for a sweet and merciful nine hours, and neither one could want for more right then.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty. So, I wrote the bit with the fucking. I guess that means I can pack it in, right? Haha. Jokes. Paradise is always fraught with trouble. Let me know your thoughts and feelings. Lay it on me. Let me have it. Don't hold back. *Kisses.* I love you.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this chapter was difficult. I hit a wall and then shit got erased on accident and I cried and threw things and then decided that maybe it was a sign, so I rewrote it. On top of that, it's springtime, therefore it's baby time and I make my living off of hippie-dippy pregnant women, so I has a busy. So here it is. I know that this chapter might seem weird and out of place (you are welcome to tell me if you feel that way), but it does have a purpose in the arc (the way I'm thinking it's headed), more or less. So patience, my babies. I hope you're still with me <3

Gretchen was certain of very few things in life. She had been conditioned early on never to rely on other human beings but more than that, she had learned not to rely on her own memory. It was hardly any wonder that she adhered to that maxim seeing as how she had spent the first three years of adulthood in a drug-addled stupor. Her memory counted for very little. And yet, she was almost certain that she was wholly unfamiliar with the overgrown child laying at her feet with a face full of pepper spray, no matter how many times he said his name. "Jimmy DeSanta! My name is Jimmy DeSanta!" he kept crying through sobs.

 

 

That morning, she had awoken next to Michael and it had only taken her a few short seconds to recognize her surroundings and to remember the circumstances that brought her there. They were both naked. A sliver of orange from the new day's sun was cutting through the window treatments, lighting up a section of the wall across from the bed. Michael's head was buried in the side of her torso, his arm draped across her. She stifled a giggle at her wonderment concerning how his head had gotten all the way down there. She tried to shuffle out from under him quietly and slowly, but he reflexively gripped her tighter. "Hold it," me mumbled sleepily. Gretchen edged him onto his back by rolling over.

"I've gotta get to work, Michael," she said, noting the time as 6:15 a.m. She had a meeting in an hour and a half with her superiors.

When she tried to climb off of the bed, he grabbed her again, pulling her on top of him. He was indeed awake now. Light sleeper. "Come on. Tell Lest you're not coming in. You're sick. But luckily, I know how to take care of sickos like you," he purred at her, lifting his head to nibble at her breast. She giggled, following that up with an involuntary sigh of approval but she knew that if she didn't get, she really might miss her meeting. Fifteen seconds of skin contact had already gotten her hot.

"We'll have to put a pin in that for now, doctor," she said before kissing him softly on the mouth. She felt his hands release her involuntarily as she scooted off the bed. She immediately found her panties and slipped them on. Her bra was at the foot of the bed. When she'd pulled on her dress, she looked to see him propped up on one elbow, staring at her.

"You're not planning on avoiding my phone calls now, are you?"

Gretchen laughed. "My one and done days are behind me, Michael," she said, as she slipped on her glasses. When she had them on, though, she saw that the look on his face was pensive. She felt her face fall into its own frown. "Oh shit," she whispered with an embarrassed laugh. She had been too dense to realize that he was dead serious. Her flightiness was showing. He plainly thought that she might try to dodge him now that they'd scratched their little itch together. Of course, the thing about itches is that scratching often makes them worse. She climbed back onto the bed and kissed him forcefully, which seemed to subdue him a bit. He put his hands on the sides of her face, plainly not wanting to let her go. She broke the kiss and covered his hands with hers. "I'm not done with you," she said. "I promise I'll take your calls, provided I'm not tied up."

"I think I can live with that."

 

 

Her meeting was dull and monotonous but it was hard for her not to be giddy. For the first time in a long time, she didn't feel completely empty after sex. She felt light and nice and she didn't care about tomorrow just then. It was a little bit scary, too. A bit of a free fall, but she'd had nothing like it in so long, having resigned herself to living in the doldrums, avoiding too much excitement so as not to fall off a ledge. Or rather, a wagon.

She sat in her drab, grey skirt and crisp white blouse, nodding and smiling politely at the agency managers, assuring them that Lester Crest was showing full compliance with the treatment program assigned by his doctors and that no changes needed to be made to his care at that time. She neglected to mention that her charge had roped her into an espionage plot to take town highly regarded employees of a certain contentious "private security firm" and that she had subsequently taken one of his criminal associates as a lover of sorts. And, in all honesty, she didn't count it as much of an omission seeing as how she felt so damn good on this particular day. Too good to worry about the strange turn that her life had taken.

 

When she got to Lester's, he commented that she was late to which she responded by reminding him that it was the third Tuesday of the month, her meeting day, to which he responded, _Oh yeah,_ before wheeling back into his lair. Gretchen unbuttoned her blouse, hiked up her skirt and started to clean the oven. And she didn't even mind doing it this time. Didn't mind that her wrists were ringed with grease spots and that the steel wool was slicing her fingertips. Or that the residual heat in the oven was adding to the normal, baseline heat of Lester's house. And that all of these conditions were ruining her best blouse and about the only thing that she owned that was suitable for meetings. She unwittingly scrubbed that oven for damn near forty minutes.

 

 

At the end of the day, as Gretchen took dinner out of the stove and tucked her mottled blouse back into her skirt, Lester appeared in the kitchen, holding a folder. "What's up?" Gretchen asked him, leaning against the counter.

"I, uh...Looked into assisted living homes in Carcer City for you. I found one that's even better than the one you gave me and took the liberty of getting the paperwork started. Getting your grandmother in there shouldn't be a problem. I found all her pertinent information and pre-filled most of this for you," he said handing her the envelope. "I just need for you to sign it. Or forge the signature of whoever her guarantor is..."

Gretchen leafed through the folder. "Lester," she cooed graciously. "I can't believe you pulled this off!"

"It's me we're talking about here, Gretch," Lester said, fanning his hands out to connote the obvious naivete in her statement.

"Right," she whispered. She could feel herself beaming at him. "Thank you."

"No need to thank me," he said, wheeling backward. Gretchen started to gather her things and headed for the door. "Say, Gretch," Lester called after her. She turned to meet him.

"What's up?"

Lester folded his hands in his lap. "I'm the one that oughta be askin' you what's up."

"Sorry?" Gretchen asked.

"You seem...I dunno. You're behaving oddly today. I'm less worried that you're going to intentionally drive into oncoming traffic on your way home today."

Gretchen gaped at him. "Lester that is _awful._ Jeez. Nothing's up, okay? Besides, you were locked in your office as usual. What would you know about it?"

"I heard you humming along with the top forty station for hours and hours, Gretchen. You don't hum and you hate top forty radio. So that leads me to believe that something is up or that you're unwell. So which is it? Are you planning on auditioning for that hacky talent competition on basic cable or are you on the verge of a complete mental breakdown?"

Gretchen gaped again. It was her typical response to being blindsided by accusations. She simply reverted to her fourteen-year-old self. "Whatever, Lester. I'm sorry that you can't stand to see me in a decent mood." She hoped that that would be the end of it. She watched him as he glared at her out of the corner of her eye. She felt a chill run up her spine. Her own mother had given her that look many times. The fact that, like Lester, she had also been mostly confined to a wheelchair, made her want to crawl out of her skin. The only thing that she _really_ didn't miss about her mother was that look.

"You'd tell me if something was going on?"

Gretchen shrugged. "I guess, Smash. If I thought you needed to know, I mean."

Lester glared for another moment before he seemed satisfied with her answer. "Alrighty then. I'm expecting something important in the mail tomorrow, so don't forget to check the box on your way in. And I'll be needing to talk to you about our next Merryweather mark," he said, wheeling away.

Gretchen didn't bother to say goodbye before she was out the door. She didn't know how Lester would react to her little dalliance with Michael or if he would allow it at all, but she didn't really want the rug pulled out from under her before she'd even begun to understand what it was.

 

 

By the time Gretchen was done running her personal errands, night was starting to fall. She had become suddenly and acutely aware that her top was disgusting and she couldn't wait to get out of those clothes. She also couldn't wait to hear from Michael. She had gone full-blown school girl giddy over the guy even though they'd only had one night together and even though she knew in the back of her mind that what she was doing was really, really bizarre and maybe a little bit wrong.

She decided to put off thinking her troublesome thoughts for a bit and she stepped into the shower. She hadn't had time to shower off the sex sweat before her meeting that morning and it was making her feel just a tiny bit tawdry. The shower hit just the right spots. She hadn't realized how sore she was from scrubbing Lester's kitchen. She soaped up, grateful then for creature comforts like showers. When she was done, she put in her contacts and gave herself a moment to adjust to the slightly askew view post-glasses that they gave her before heading to the bedroom. She dug through her closet and drawers and, because she was feeling extra okay about things today, decided not to expend an ounce of excess energy on picking an outfit. She threw on a t-shirt and shorts.

It was only when she was standing in her vanity, running her fingers through her hair to make it dry faster that she heard the noise. A noise like a tiny guitar being smashed. It stopped her cold. She stood, fingers raked half-way down the length of her head as she listened for more. She heard drawers being opened, papers being shuffled. After the initial surge of adrenaline wore off a hair, she reached into the jewelry box on top of the vanity and opened the top drawer, quietly. She pulled out a tiny can of pepper spray. She could have kicked herself for leaving the gun on Michael's patio.

She tried to plan an escape. She could still hear things being tossed about in the living room. From the sound of it, he was near the front door. If she tried to climb out the bedroom window, she would fall too far. The sliding glass door out to her tiny balcony was in the kitchen, and the open floor plan ensured that the intruder would become wise to her presence if she tried to open it. She could try to hide, but if she resigned herself to that, she might not have enough fight in her when the time came. Her phone was on the charger in the kitchen. So close to the chaos. She couldn't call anyone for help.

 As she edged quietly out into the hallway, she caught sight of the intruder from the paltry light of her stove's hood vent. He was dressed mostly in black. He had a ski mask. The broken guitar noise that she'd heard was her tiny balalaika, which had fallen from it's place on the wall and was now at his feet. She had procured the Russian folk instrument when she'd decided to follow a guy whom she had met in Amsterdam (where she had been visiting for a cousin's wedding) all the way to St. Petersburg. The only token she had of that short and badly thought out relationship was at the feet of the man who might be the last person that she saw.

No. No, fuck that. She'd been roughed up one two many times in recent history. When she was six feet away, still undetected, she raised her pepper spray. "What the fuck do you want!" she spat. The intruder immediately turned to her and she took the opportunity to blast him in the face with a stream of pepper spray. It sent him to the ground quickly after he stumbled into the wall. He coughed and sputtered and whined as he rolled on the ground.

Gretchen flicked on a wall sconce and quickly found pair of boots on the floor by her breakfast bar. She pulled them on, stealing intermittent glances at her intruder. He tugged at the black ski cap over his face. He looked portly, or maybe it was just his baggy clothes, though they weren't exactly hanging off of him. He wore a black baseball jersey with red lettering and she saw a chunky chain hanging around his neck. He must have been young, she thought. But finally, when his back was to her, something caught her eye. Something that startled and confused her.

She stomped over to him, emboldened by her confusion and still battling a surge of adrenaline. She planted her boot in his back and stared at the letters on the back of his jersey again. _DeSanta._ DeSanta. As in the last name of the guy that she'd woken up next to that morning. "What the fuck?" she muttered. "Who the fuck are you?" she barked. While she'd asked the question and she had certainly wanted an answer, she was unable for some reason to grasp the answer that the kid was giving her in between coughing and gasping. At some point, she pulled of his mask and flipped him over. And when his eyes fluttered open, she saw something vaguely familiar in those eyes underneath his reddish blonde cherub curls. Something that she couldn't place.

 Gretchen was certain of very few things in life. She had been conditioned early on never to rely on other human beings but more than that, she had learned not to rely on her own memory. It was hardly any wonder that she adhered to that maxim seeing as how she had spent the first three years of adulthood in a drug-addled stupor. Her memory counted for very little. And yet, she was almost certain that she was wholly unfamiliar with the overgrown child laying at her feet with a face full of pepper spray, no matter how many times he said his name. "Jimmy DeSanta! My name is Jimmy DeSanta!" he kept crying through sobs. What was it then, about those eyes?

 

 

Michael stood in his kitchen, swirling whiskey in his glass as he pulled up his contacts list. He'd just gotten in from meeting Trevor at the Vanilla Unicorn and he was eager to get a hold of Gretchen. He'd wanted to all day, but he'd been tied up and then half way through the day, he'd decided to see if she'd reach out first. A stupid, adolescent game, really, buy hey. He wasn't feeling at all like himself lately.

He found her number and dialed it, taking a sip of his drink.

_"Hello?"_

"Gretchen."

 _"Michael."_ She sounded quiet, kinda distant.

"I didn't wake ya, did I gorgeous?"

_"Michael, we need to talk."_

He took another swig of his whiskey and set it down, hoping to calm the small squall in his stomach at those words. Those words rarely heralded anything good. He swallowed hard to get the rest of the liquid to go down. He laughed then. "Don't tell me you're already having second thoughts..."

_"That's not it, Michael-"_

"'Cause, I gotta tell you, we only slept together once. It's not like I'm chompin' at the bit to put a ring on your finger, sweetheart. But I'd sure like a chance to see what could happen-"

 _"Michael!"_ she practically shouted. She didn't sound so distant anymore. _"I said it's not like that...I-"_ she began, cutting herself off with a sigh. _"Michael, I'm with your son."_

Michael's mind went completely blank as he tried to comprehend what she was telling him. It rang so empty that it almost sounded to him like some figure of speech that he hadn't heard before. "You're with my son?"

_"Yeah. Jimmy? He and I are at Burger Shot-_

"Wait, wait, wait. You're with Jimmy? My son, Jimmy?"

 _"Yes,"_ she replied, sounding a little frustrated. _"He wanted to come to Burger Shot in Vespucci, so that's where we are and that's where I need you now."_

"Gretch, I'm a little confused," Michael said, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off the headache that he'd been beset with in the last ten seconds. "When did you meet my son?"

_"I met him about an hour ago. He'll tell you all about it when you get here. Can you get here?"_

Michael sighed. Shit was feeling a lick too surreal for him. "I can be there in a half an hour, baby."

 _"Thank you, Michael,"_ she said before she hung up.

Michael shoved his phone in his jacket pocket, grabbed his keys and headed out the door. He was out of his drive and on his way to Vespucci in a quick. This oughta be rich, he thought as he drove through Rockford Hills. Of course, he knew that he was in for a world of bullshit. What in the hell was his half-estranged son doing with the sweeter, younger half of his newly-minted sexual entanglement? Had she known Jimmy prior to meeting him and only recently became aware of a connection? No, not in a city this size. Plus, she was a little too mature to be hanging out with Jimmy and his burnout ilk.

That left only one possibility: one of them had sought out and found the other after discovering the other's existence. Of course, that left the question of who had sought out who. He hadn't told Jimmy a thing about Gretchen. He wouldn't have had the opportunity even if he'd wanted to tell him, really considering that the little fucker had been M.I.A. for the past few months. Michael only knew he was alive by checking to see his gamer tag was still active along with the occasional social media creep. And he'd hardly mentioned his family to Gretchen. When he had, well before last night when she'd decided to put an end to the agonizing sexual tension between them, she hadn't really pressed this issue of Michael's failed marriage and the two wayward products of it. She didn't act disinterested. Rather, she seemed repelled by the prospect of making Michael share the details. She was good at walking on eggshells, he'd discovered. It was for that reason that he had a hard time buying that she could have made the first contact.

The frenzied flurry of his thoughts subsided a bit by the time he reached the parking lot outside of Burger Shot. But his stomach did another somersault when he saw Gretchen and Jimmy sitting at an outdoor table, both of them looking morose. Jimmy's face was mottled with a red hue as he sipped his soda. Gretchen was sitting sideways on her bench. Her legs were pulled up to her chest and she propped her head lazily in her palm. She looked exhausted. But hot, still. Dammit. He wished he'd gotten to her earlier. Maybe they'd be in bed instead of at a greasy burger chain with his kid.

Both Gretchen and Jimmy looked up at Michael as he approached them where they sat. They both looked a mite scared, too, each wearing twin deer-in-the-headlights expressions. Gretchen straightened up and put her feet on the ground. He looked to Jimmy who was now averting his gaze. It probably didn't help that Michael was glaring at him, trying to figure out why the skin around his eyes was so red and splotchy. He turned to Gretchen whose eyes were wide but still tired looking. He was relieved to see her give him a faint but warm smile before she gestured with a nod of her head for him to approach.

"Someone mind telling me what's going on here?"

"Nice to see you, too, _Dad,"_ Jimmy sniped without looking up at him. Gretchen looked nervously between the two of them. Michael reflexively reached out and put his hand on her neck and rubbed, trying to put her unspoken fears to rest. She looked up at him, her eyes wet with the glaze of exhaustion.

"I didn't mean anything by it, Jim. It _is_ good to see you, son. Wish I saw more of you."

"I've been busy."

Michael took a seat next to Gretchen who remained silent, gnawing nervously at her thumbnail.

"I'll bet," Michael said absently. He looked at Gretchen then, hoping that she would tell him what was up. She looked between the two of them a second time, seemingly realizing after a moment that she would need to take the reigns. She leaned over to Michael and whispered softly in his ear, though he figured Jimmy could hear them.

"Michael, you need to talk to your son. He's got some...fucked up ideas about-" she inhaled sharply, cutting herself off. "He's got the wrong idea about who I am and how I know you. And you need to set him straight or...Tell him he's wrong, at least."

"What do you mean?" Michael asked, looking between them. He was totally confused and he had an impending sense of doom stirring in his gut.

Gretchen turned to Jimmy. "You need to tell your dad what happened tonight and you need to tell him what you told me. About why you did it."

 _"Did what?"_ Michael spat, sounding harsher than he wanted to. But Christ knew he had a precedent set for such a reaction. Jimmy had stolen his yacht _and_ he'd been kidnapped by some fuck from the internet. Now whatever shit he was in involved Gretchen.

"It's fine, nobody got hurt!" Jimmy said defensively. It seemed that he could sense Michael's upset.

"Michael," Gretchen pleaded, touching his shoulder lightly, as though it might have been a landmine. She looked back at Jimmy. "Just tell him," she said, standing up. "And you," she continued, addressing Michael, "Take it easy on your boy. He's right. Nobody got hurt. Except for him." She shrugged, her eyes still pleading with Michael to keep his cool. Though, it was fucking hard for him to keep his cool considering the fact that he _still_ didn't know what was up.

Michael watched Gretchen walk away, out of earshot, to sit on the hood of her station wagon. Jimmy wasn't taking the initiative to disclose what had happened. "What the hell happened, Jim? What happened to your face?"

Jimmy seemed even more skittish than ever. He plunged the straw in and out of his cup, nervously until Michael reached over and stopped him, prompting his son to look him in the eye. Jimmy sighed. "She pepper sprayed me," he said casually, motioning to Gretchen with his head.

"She pepper sprayed you?"

"Yep."

"When did she pepper spray you?"

Jimmy sighed again. "When she found me in her apartment."

Michael felt like he'd been punched in the gut. "Jimmy...What in the _fuck_ were you doing in Gretchen's apartment?"

"I was...you know, vetting her!" Jimmy said, having returned to his typical defensive mode.

Michael leaned back and inhaled sharply to offset the sudden tightness in his chest. "What in the hell do you mean _vetting_ her, Jimmy? Why?"

Jimmy cocked his head and looked at his dad with wide eyes, the way he had always done when he was in trouble. "Well, it's just...I came over to see you one day and I saw you and her coming out of the house..."

"Yeah?" Michael said, eager for his son to get to the point.

"So, when I saw her, naturally I was like 'who's this lady and what's she doing with my dad? Is she a prostitute or somethin'? Why would she wanna take up with some sorry old man if she wasn't?'"

"This story have a conclusion, Jimmy?" Michael shot bitterly.

"I decided to follow her. Ya know, to see what was up?" Michael was now contending with an oncoming migraine. He rubbed at his forehead as he gestured with his hand for Jimmy to continue. "And I found out where she lived and I followed her to your place again. And then she was at the Richman Tea Room all dolled up and again at Easy Come Martini Bar? I was sure that she was a prostitute, which I wasn't holding against her. But then I was worried that it might be something more..." Jimmy shifted in his seat. "The guys she met with her Merryweather guys. They're board members. I recognized them from the news when they were having a press conference about how their investors didn't have anything to worry about with all the trouble..."

"Jimmy-" Michael began.

"Don't worry, I saw the news on accident. I haven't lost my mind or anything, I still think it's boring as fuck...But after all that shit that you got into with Merryweather, I started to worry about her being a..." Jimmy leaned in and whispered, "a hit woman or something."

"Jimmy!" Michael barked. He looked at Gretchen again. She didn't seem fazed by any of it. Actually, she seemed like she might be nodding off. He leaned in toward his son. "Gretchen is _not_ a hit woman. If she were, you would have gotten a bullet through your head instead of a face full of pepper spray."

Jimmy stared back at him, obviously confused. "So...She _is_ a hooker?" Michael slammed his hand down on the table, startling his son.

"No, Jimmy," Michael said with measured but palpable agitation in his voice. "She is not a hooker. She works with me. Me and Trevor and Franklin. She's helpin' us with a project."

"What kinda project?" Jimmy asked, seeming half-removed.

"That ain't important, son. What _is_ important is that you understand that she's no danger to your old man and promise me that you ain't gonna follow her anymore."

"But dad-"

"Drop it, Jim." Michael got up and rounded the table to where Jimmy sat. He looked a little nervous. "Give your old man a hug," Michael said, holding his arms out. Jimmy obliged, either out of fear or sheer defeat. Michael really was happy to see that Jimmy was doing alright, considering the circumstances. He held the embrace for a moment.

When Michael broke the hug, he kept Jimmy's shoulders in his grasp and surveyed the dissipating rash on his face, shaking his head. _Thank fuck Gretchen had brought that piece back to him. This whole thing could have turned into tabloid fodder quick. Man's Paramour Fatally Shoots his Son. Christ._

Jimmy's eyes, traveled to where Gretchen was now laying recumbent on her hood and then back to Michael. "I'm real sorry, pop." Michael slapped his son on the shoulder.

"Get in the car. I'll take you home."

Jimmy wordlessly obliged as Michael made his way over to Gretchen. He touched her on the knee and she shot up to a seated position, blinking sleep out of her eyes. "I'm up," she said, balancing herself on the hood.

Michael laughed. "Hop in my car, I'll take you home." Gretchen looked up at him with a hint of amusement on her face, eyes wide.

"No, that's okay, Michael."

He glanced back at the car where Jimmy had turned the radio station to hip hop and was fiddling with the bass function on the stereo system. "He's harmless, I assure you."

"Yeah, it's not about that." She rose to her feet and looked up at him. "It's just that I can't think of anything more awkward than sharing a ride home with that kid right now."

"You're not gonna fall asleep behind the wheel, are ya?"

"I'll get a cup of coffee for the trek home." She looked him up and down before stealing a peak past his shoulder to where Jimmy sat in Michael's car. "Am I allowed to touch you in front of your kid or will he throw a conniption if I do?"

Michael snorted. He was relieved really. He thought that this little misadventure might have been just the thing to put her off. He leaned in and pulled her in by the back of her head and kissed her. He lingered a little longer than he realized before Jimmy beeped at them. He broke the kiss and looked in her eyes. She didn't seem the slightest bit traumatized by the whole event. "Can I get a moment of your time tomorrow night?"

"Is that all you want? A _moment?"_ she teased him.

"Can I get more than that?"

"I'll give you a sequence of them."

He touched her cheek. "I'll take it."

Another beep from Jimmy. He let himself dwell on her face for another minute before he walked back to his car. Gretchen was out of the lot before he and Jimmy were. Michael tried to turn the bass back down but Jimmy had worked some kind of magic on it and it was stuck, forcing him to mute the stereo altogether.

They drove in silence for a little while. It had gotten late, after all and Michael was starting to feel tiredness crushing him. Jimmy was fidgeting in his seat. Finally, after a quiet ten minutes or so, Jimmy turned to his dad.

"So, you hittin' that or what?"

"Quiet, Jim."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sigh. Alrighty. I hope that this was to your liking or at least that you didn't feel like you'd wasted twenty odd minutes reading it. Do talk at me in the comments if you're so inclined because it makes me happy.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's going to be fluff and smut (like, maybe too much. I got kind of ridiculous with it this time. It almost felt like a chore. *Almost.*) I hope you like it but if you don't (or if you do), be sure to leave me some feedback in the comments.

Gretchen was stooped over as the cat that she had just made friends with bounded around her feet playfully, occasionally springing up on his hind legs to take advantage of the hand she was holding out for him. She paid deference even to "lesser" creatures, allowing them to take their time with her, deciding how much they wanted of her. If the fucking thing wasn't so cute, she might resent it as she did Lester.

The resentment was creeping, but it had taken on a new strength after her confrontation with Michael's son. A resentment of the fact that her once-quiet life had turned into a bit of a shit show and that now she was even more entangled in the whole thing than she had been before. Because her pathetic little girl crush on Michael had been infused with something deeper and more adult and therefore far more dangerous than a trifling little flight of fancy. It was insidious, but not covert enough for her not to recognize that, once she no longer wanted to feel his hands on her _constantly_ , she might start to resent him, too. Because she had done nothing to set any concrete boundaries when this whole thing started. She'd thrown herself to the wolves because wolves were the only thing she seemed to understand.

She didn't want to think that Michael was one of those wolves, though. She felt safe with him. She truly believed that he actually wanted her and that he wasn't playing her. That he wasn't just taking advantage of her affection for him to keep her in that web. Of course, though, she knew that she wasn't much of a lie detector. And the son of a bitch was so suave, too. Suave in a way that used to repulse her but somehow, when it was _him_ flashing his colorful plumage at her, she fell for it every time.

 _"'Ay, where'd you go?"_ It was Franklin. Gretchen made no move to give away her position, content to pet this spastic cat a while longer.

"I'm just down the hill a bit, beneath the access road. I found a kitty."

_"Huh?"_

"I found a little orange kitty. We're hanging out down here."

 _"Girl, don't be touchin' some nasty ass cat you just found. Motherfucker probably has mange,"_ Franklin warned her.

Gretchen laughed. "He doesn't have mange. He's fat and has all his fur." She heard Franklin snort dryly.

_"Well, shit, suit yo'self, but you way too fine to get them fuckin' scabs and lose your eyebrows over a damn cat."_

Gretchen could hear him getting closer. He was in her ear and the air around her. "You flatter me. Tell you what, if I get mange, I'll be the first to apologize for doubting you." She stood up and the cat ran away. She turned around to see Franklin appear on the horizon behind her. She dug into her ear and took her ear piece out at the same time that Franklin did. "So, can we tell Lester it was a good idea to spring for this _miraculous_ new technology?" she called to him.

"I guess so. Was I comin' in clear?"

"Yeah, was I?"

"Yeah. I'm guessin' we got a few hundred yards from each other," he said, placing his ear piece back into it's tiny plastic case and putting it in his pocket. "If me an' my boys don't fuck up royal, you should be fine. And now you can hear us talkin', too. Can't believe it took this long for Lester to put two-way communication together. Some master plannin' on his part, right?"

Gretchen snickered as the two began to make their way back up the hill. "I think he really did believe that all of this would go off pretty seamlessly. Either that or he really does want me dead and didn't want to pay someone to do it."

Franklin gave her a light shoulder check. "Naw, he ain't want you dead. Who else'd put up with his bullshit?"

"He could pay someone to put up with his bullshit _and_ not take it personally."

"Well, I think you did somethin' to win him over. He ain't quick to trust if you know what I mean."

"I know."

The pair of them walked in silence for a little bit, negotiating the wilder part of the Vinewood Hills, dodging gopher and snake holes, watching twilight put the sun to bed. "Yo, can I ask you somethin'?" Franklin said, breaking the silence.

"Hm?"

He stopped suddenly and Gretchen turned to face him, looking at the sunset for a minute before she looked into his eyes. Franklin's eyes weren't completely hard, but they were...guarded somehow. She could see a softness behind them, though. A sincerity that he kept couched in his no-nonsense attitude. "So, I got curious 'bout what you were gettin' out of this whole thing. Puttin' yourself in danger for one guy that treats you like hell and three dudes you don't even know?"

"Yeah?" she asked, a little bit amused that he was taking interest _now_.

"An' Lester...He tells me all's you requested was to get your grandmother put in a nicer old folks home. Not for money or a nicer car. A fuckin' old folks home. So, can I ask?" Gretchen tilted her head at him. She didn't know what it was he wanted to ask. She was guessing one of three things. When he saw that she didn't know exactly what the question was, he asked her. "What's that all about?" It was all three of the theoretical questions she had in mind.

Gretchen looked past Franklin's shoulder to the L.S. skyline. She last bit of sun was reflecting off of one of those buildings. "Are you asking me because you don't understand why _anyone_ would do it or because you don't see why someone as pitiful as me wouldn't try to get a taste of the high life?" she said, gesturing to the lavish houses below them.

Franklin moved his head back with a look on his face that conveyed an _are you for real_ kind of message. "I didn't say I thought you was pitiful," he shot defensively.

"Then what's the problem? Are you _suspicious_ of me?" she asked, a little theatrically in her sarcasm.

"I asked first," he shot back.

Gretchen smiled then, partly to spite herself and partly because Franklin, in his deftness, was asking her a question that she'd asked herself many a time, but had not yet come up with a satisfactory answer to. She shrugged. "I just want her to be comfortable, ya know?"

"You close with her or somethin'?"

Gretchen laughed, a little more bitterly than she'd wanted to. She shrugged again. "Yeah, but not in the way you want to be. Me and my mom lived with her for a little while after the first time my dad got sent up and...She was never super crazy about my mom but she _really_ didn't like my dad. And, unfortunately, I look a lot like the fucker when I frown, so..."

"Wait...So you tellin' me that you wanna use your payment for this shit to make your grandma, who don't like you, just a _hair_ more comfortable in her golden years?"

"She's all I've got, Franklin. My mom died of a...complication from her spinal cord injury...The one that put her in the chair. And my dad's in prison. And every time I go to see him, he's just..." Gretchen waved a hand in front of her face. "There's nothing there. So that leaves Oma. She was never _warm_ but I think she really was just doing what she thought was right. You know, tough love and shit." Franklin was quiet after. He seemed to be processing what she'd just told him, really trying to swallow it. And, to her surprise, she was trying to do the same. It was bizarre, really. She hadn't planned on revealing anything so sad to herself. But there it was. Laid bare for both of them. She turned to Franklin. "Did you know your Grandma?" she asked, immediately hoping that he didn't have a horrible sob story to share, lest they both be swallowed by sadness.

"Yeah, she'n my grandad raised me after my moms died." _Shit._

"I'm sorry," Gretchen said, sounding very mousy and penitent.

"Don't do that," he said with a hint of humor in his voice as he gave her a light swat on the forearm. "You and me have some stuff in common. Just that my grandmoms was nice to me. Unless she had crack a wooden spoon 'cross my ass." Gretchen laughed and so did Franklin, once he saw that his little anecdote had had its intended effect. To tamp down the sadness that they'd inadvertently dredged up. "So you really ain't interested in money or luxury cars or nothin'?"

Gretchen smiled at him. It was weak but genuine. She shrugged her shoulders. "My ex had a hundred and fourteen thousand dollars under his mattress by the time I left him. And no amount of money could buy that feeling of...I dunno, _mercy_ that I got when I left his house for the last time and went to my first  meeting." She looked back into Franklin's face. It was so soft now. It almost had a forgiving quality to it. It made her feel warm. She knew that he was hardened. Hardened by a life of being stereotyped and pigeon-holed and living up to the stereotypes and trying to break them down. Just to be free from it all. And it was because of that, or maybe in spite of it, that the unsolicited and understated forgiveness that he wore for her at the _very moment she spoke of absolution_ that she felt a little of that weight she'd been carrying leave her.

"So, if you left a hundred and fourteen k untouched, then what'd you want from the dude? Was it just about the drugs?"

This whole conversation was made up of emotional booby traps. Those pesky things dotted their discourse the way gopher holes dotted these hills, but only now did Franklin's questioning truly catch Gretchen off guard. She felt a lump rise in her throat. She put it down with a deep breath and almost simultaneously, she blurted out, "Love."

"Huh?"

There was no point in lying to him now, given how skin crawlingly truthful she had been with him in the preceding moments. "I wanted love. From him. It's all I want, I think." The piteous tenor in her voice, even to her own ears, held a kind of dainty beauty. A beauty that saturated the syllables. "Just love."

 

 

A full three days had passed since Michael had gone to Vespucci Beach to collect his ne'er do well offspring, discovering in the process that his son had graduated from intra-familial larceny to breaking and entering. Gretchen had indeed upheld her promise to come and see him the following evening, but Lester had hijacked the evening when Michael had casually mentioned to him that he was expecting her. He'd shown up moments before she had and it was only later that Michael had realized that his and Gretchen's little...whatever the hell it was, was still a secret to everyone except for Jimmy. So instead of a continuation of their amorous play, they were treated to a detailed plan of the third installment of the operation that had brought them together in the first place. Michael was left to stare at her while Lest was in his zone.

It was fucking pathetic. And he'd quickly lost whatever piecemeal bit of moral integrity he'd had when he realized that he wanted her. Because when Amanda had left him for the second time, having realized that their second shot at happily ever after was not only worlds away from her first choice of how she wanted things to go, but that it wasn't a choice that she would tolerate being _wait-listed_ for if the alternative was living under the L.S. freeway overpass...Well, that had forced Michael to evaluate himself. And he'd resolved not to be such a bastard. Or not a complete one. Most especially when it came to his base desires concerning women.

Gretchen, though...Well, at first he thought that she'd just stirred up some of that typical male biological imperative to tread lightly among the females. That it was just a throwback to his fuckin' Neolithic brethren when he couldn't help but stare at her mouth. And then her neck. And then her tits. Until he'd taken in and practically fuckin' meditated on every square inch of surface area on her body, only to notice that he'd missed the beauty mark next to her left eye when they were driving to their second "job." Because at some point, even before they'd slept together, he'd realized that what passed as naivete and frankness in her was actually hiding something that she hadn't shown him yet. Not yet. 

For the first time in a long time, Michael was able to look at his wedding ring as something other than a tome of all his failures. It sat on his counter in front of him as he pressed on the edge of it, flipping it on it's edge repeatedly while he thought about nothing. He listened to it ping against the granite, watched it spin and settle, over and over again until he heard it. A knock at the door.

He made his way into the foyer and opened the door to find _her_ standing the door. She looked right in his face, shoulders pinned inward. She had a look of fright on her face. "Hi," she said helplessly.

"Hey," he said.

"I'm sorry I didn't call," she keened with her hands fanned out. He wondered then how he must have been looking at her for her to get so defensive.

"It's fine," he said, pulling her in by the arm. He shut the door and looked at her again.

Jesus, what a weird state for them to be in. You'd think they'd only kissed. Or almost kissed. Or tried kissing but fumbled and never recovered. Fact is, they never had a chance to recover from what happened with Jimmy and then having Lester swoop in on their last meeting. Gretchen had a sad, sober look in her eye.

"Michael-" she started.

He cut her off with a raise of his finger and started toward the living room. Whatever she had to say, he wasn't going to let her say it so close to the door. He wouldn't give her _that_ advantage. She followed him, but she didn't sit down next to him on the couch right away. Michael decided not to take it so personally. "I was startin' to think you weren't comin' back this way."

Gretchen started to smile at him but shook her head as though to shake it away. Like she had an agenda coming here. An agenda that didn't involve any artful small talk. "We should talk," she said. And then she sat down. Finally, but also at the worst time. It was total heart breaking, buzz killing choreography if Michael had ever seen it. He braced himself.

"Alright. Spit it out," he said, trying to sound civil even though his insides were roiling.

Gretchen inhaled steadily and looked him in the eye as she exhaled. "I feel really stupid," she began. She was nervous about something, he saw. "I never asked you about your family. I feel like you tried to tell me a couple of times and I...I didn't let you..."

Michael sat up straighter on the couch. He had tried to be cavalier, slumping backward. "Okay?"

"And I kind of feel like that whole thing that happened with your son..." she sighed, "I dunno, it felt like...A sign, kind of?"

Michael cocked an eyebrow at her. "A sign?" She didn't seem to pick up on his cynicism because she was nodding at him kind of enthusiastically.

"Well, I don't mean a sign from...I dunno, God or whatever. It's just that...You and I have been relying entirely on-" she stopped herself, gesturing wildly between them, looking for a word until she found it, "magnetism or chemistry or...whatever to keep us coming back to each other." All of a sudden, she seemed a little flustered. She wasn't hyperventilating, but she was obviously having a bit of a communication breakdown, only evidenced by her increasingly rapid speech and mild stammering and the odd lilt that she was placing on seemingly random words. Michael rested his elbows on his knees and looked at her. "And I don't want to be _presumptuous_ about what we're doing or anything but I feel like it's not just a quick fleeting thing because I've had those and this doesn't feel like that, so...I mean, I thought that I should tell you that...I was wondering if...From now on, can we just be straight with each other? Like, if you feel like there's something you _need_ me to know or if I feel like there's something you should know, we can just...say it?" She shoved her purse strap off her shoulder and let the bag fall to the floor. He didn't know if it was for emphasis or if she had even realized that she had done it.

She had come to his house with frazzled nerves because she'd wanted to ask him if they could be honest with each other. To not play kid games. To be open. Because that was the only way that this _thing_ that they had been doing, the thing that had kind of been a game since it started, wouldn't fizzle out. Michael leaned back again. "Alright," he said. "When I was about your age, I was up in North Yankton, turnin' over a liquor store a month. Sometimes, it was a big enough take to get through the month, sometimes, it wasn't. And when it wasn't, my wife would beg and cry because she was terrified that the next time she'd see me would be in a body bag. But I'd keep at it because it's all I knew how to do. Until one day, when she'd been through it so many times, she stopped caring if I had a pulse at the end of the night. That's when my marriage started to fall apart. It ended in earnest when she realized that, at forty two years old, she didn't have enough fake optimism to give a marriage that had tanked so good that it was completely unsalvageable."

Gretchen stared at him. Her chest was doing that thing where she was breathing kind of hard, but she didn't want to show it, so she kept her mouth shut. Even so, she stared at Michael steadfastly. She must have been gathering her thoughts. She finally spoke after a moment. "The first time I O.D.'d--I did that twice--I was nineteen and my mom came to the hospital. And when she saw me and...someone explained to her what had happened...that I'd taken too many drugs...she passed out. She just fell forward with all her deadweight and kinda spilled out of her wheelchair. And when I woke up, she was sitting by me. With eight stitches in her dome." She swallowed hard. She didn't look like she was going to cry, though. Somehow, she hadn't cried. "I'm really bad at not disappointing people, Michael," she finished, quietly.

He just watched her for a minute. Watched as she looked at the floor. Watched her tuck her golden hair behind her ear and smash her lips together. Watched her chest moving, much more shallow now, under her blue peasant top. His eyes moved up and down her. For a minute, it was like he wasn't there or like he was watching her secretly from the wings while she thought about her past. All she'd done, with no future redemption in sight. "You don't disappoint me, Gretch," he began as she looked up to meet his eyes. "In fact, I wish I thought that you _were_ some kinda botched human being. It'd save me from thinking you were put here to remind me of what a fuck up _I_ am."

 Gretchen stared back vacantly. He took the opportunity to look at her fresh face. Jesus, her eyes were big and bright. Like wide, hazel-gray lagoons or some-

It was the most aggressive thing she'd ever done. Pounce on him like that. He hadn't really seen it coming and _fuck_ was she fast. It took him a moment to regain his composure enough to kiss her back. She was towering over him, not straddling him yet, but still kissing him. Her hands were on his neck and shoulders and then biceps. He kept his hands on her waist for the first couple of minutes until she reached behind her and forcefully moved them to either side of her ass. He had no protestation regarding this new placement. He kept one hand on her ass while he roped her in closer with his arm.

He shoved his hand up her shirt and shoved his face into her soft stomach. She helped him out by pulling the shirt off over her head. This was going to be different than last time, he saw. A no-nonsense kind of fuck. So he helped himself and she let him and she showed him that she liked it with her little whimpers and her lip-biting and silent-screaming and swearing under her breath.

He took off her bra and put his mouth on her tits and stroked them while she undid his belt buckle. She kissed him softly and stroked his cock. Her hand was soft. It felt perfect but he knew that he'd need more friction soon or he would lose his damn mind. It was then that she got down on her knees in front of him. It surprised him for some reason. It surprised him that he was only now realizing that he hadn't yet thought about _this_ in all the time he'd spent thinking about it even though he loved getting blow jobs like any other human male. And she knew what she was doing.

She stared at him for much of the time she was down there, gauging his reaction to her touch. First while she was just licking and stroking and then when she took him in her mouth. He held her hair in his fist while she went at it. "Oh, fuck," he kept muttering as he panted. He leaned his head back as he felt his muscles contracting and relaxing. She was very good at this. She knew how to let a guy lose himself. He glanced at her hand on his thigh. Her hands were small but her fingers were long and spindly and her nails were painted a chipped light blue. That manicure was just a tiny, nothing of a symptom of the thing he was beginning to love about her. She wasn't afraid to show him that vulnerable, unpolished side of herself and, while he never would have guessed that this would be such a turn on for him, it turned him on now. He needed to have her.

She stood up and he stood with her, his cock rigid and shiny with her spit. She unbuttoned his shirt while he pulled open her shorts and shoved them past her waist, taking her panties with. As soon as she'd yanked his undershirt over his head and tossed it, he pulled her in close as he kissed her. He turned her around and kissed her neck while he pawed at her tits. She slid one hand in between them and started stroking him again. After a minute it was too much and she knew it, too. He pushed her toward the couch and she climbed onto it and got on her hands and knees. He got behind her. She craned her neck to look over her shoulder at him with a look that said she wanted to persuade him to do the very thing he was about to do anyway. He locked eyes with her. When he was at her entrance, she reached between her thighs and guided him in. And he was off.

He didn't have an ounce of restraint to give and from the sounds she made and the way her back curved every time he did something right, it was how she preferred it anyway. He had to focus on not coming before she did, which was getting really difficult with her slick warmth around him, and the way her skin was glowing, and her rhythmic panting punctuated by an occasional raspy little yelp,  and the sight of her delirious sex face reflected in the glass of the cabinet against the wall. _Fuck._

He looked to her back again. To that Saturn tattoo surrounded by that constellation of freckles that only existed on her back and on nobody else's. He reached out and touched it. His hand slid down her sweaty back as he thrust into her over and over and then he felt like he would come again. He grinded to a halt and pulled out slowly. Her back was still curved as she looked back to him with a slight pout. "Turn around, baby," he panted. She did as he asked and he kissed her on the mouth again, hard and desperate. He wanted to feel really close to her. He wanted to see her face while he fucked her, to be able to watch her come. He knelt over one of her legs and pulled the other around his waist so that she was partially on her side.

Her face melted into a sublime one as he entered her again. He picked up the pace quickly and then she was his again, moaning and sighing and pressing her lips together. He knelt in closer to her and braced himself with his hand by her head. He turned her face back toward him every time she started to bury it in the couch cushions. He watched her tits rock softly with each thrust. At some point, she reached between her legs and started to touch herself. After a minute, her breathing got more ragged and she shut her eyes tight and moaned and arched her back and her hand shot out from between her legs. She gasped as he felt her tightening around him. She was frozen in the afterglow for a moment after. She gripped his forearm and smiled a dizzy little smile at him as she panted and licked her lips. And the sight of her so happy finally pushed him over the edge.

He grunted and dug his fingers into her thigh and kept his eyes on her face which held a kind of mild astonishment now. He felt that electric feeling, kind of like static, but nice. He finished coming in four choppy movements before he collapsed at her side, spooning her immediately. They were a sticky, sweaty, panting heap. He kissed her shoulder, still feverishly even though they were both spent. She let him hold her close even though they were sticking together. He could feel her going limper by the minute. She was going to fall asleep any minute.

He reached in front of her and cupped her face, pulling it toward him. Her eyes fluttered as he kissed her cheek. "Forgive me?" she said softly.

"For what, baby?" he whispered back, trying to hide his exasperation. He didn't want her starting in on any self-loathing bullshit so soon after they'd both come. The sex had been good. The bit after could still be good, too.

"Keeping you waiting," she answered, her words laced with the ether of oncoming sleep. Michael smiled into her face as he kissed it again. He was relieved that she was only being cute.

"You're making up for it now. I can't really be mad after that, can I?" he jibed honestly.

"No," she breathed out in a sleepy laugh. She turned around and kissed him and wrapped her free arm around his middle and buried her face in his chest before she passed out. He laid there and rubbed her back until they were both asleep. They wouldn't see the light of day again for thirty six hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is getting a bit ridic, I know. But I've kind of fallen in love with Michael, that traitorous fuck, and now I'm working through that vicariously through my character. I'm not really following a tight arc like I did in my last series. But I'm having fun with it and I hope my aimlessness isn't taking away from your experience. *Hugs*


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a million years to write and I don't know how to feel about it. It's kind of another one of those weird chapters that doesn't feel entirely substantial to the story plot wise but I wanted to put it in there any way so I could have EVEN MORE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, GUYS, but I don't know. And I just finished writing it so I'm not in a self-critiquing mood. Still, I wanted to give you guys something in the way of an update. Anyway, comment, comment, comment. Let me know if I'm on the right track. I still have a lot to think about. Gotta get some of that Trevor love in their and nuke paradise a couple more times before I can wrap this burrito up. As always, thanks for reading. You guys are the best.

Michael was cruising down the freeway at a moderate, reasonable pace, ignoring his lead foot and having a think. He wasn't really up to the task that he was about to perform but he knew that he needed to do it. He had sent Gretchen off that morning, or rather, she had insisted that she needed to resume her life. To check her mail and change her clothes and use her own toothbrush. So he'd reluctantly let her leave. And then he sat by his pool, chain smoking and staring into the water until he couldn't take anymore and called an emergency meeting with Lester.

Now he was headed east, chewing nervously on the inside of his cheek. He didn't know why he was so fucking nervous. Something about having his ethereal little shut-in weekend with that woman end was setting his teeth on edge. Or maybe it had begun earlier. Maybe it had started in that alleyway, the night that Dabuque had attacked her in his drug-addled state. Whenever it had started, it _definitely_ hadn't helped that his own nitwit son, God love him, had had the gumption to track her down. 

It had only gotten worse the night before. After she had told him that she was going to leave the next day, Michael had acted a little bit affronted. She decided to appease him with what turned out to be a _very_ retributive blowjob, one of the finest he'd had maybe ever. "I'll be back for you. I can't stay away," she'd whispered before taking him in her mouth. Afterward, they were standing in the shower together while he washed his cum out of her hair, and he looked down to see her staring at him. By then, enough time had passed since they'd gone at it so that he could actually see straight. And when he looked at her then, he felt a strange honesty that he hadn't felt in many years. An honesty that was polluted by this sudden sense of grief and guilt of which he couldn't pinpoint the origin. And it must have shown, too.

"What's wrong?" she had asked. She had a poignant look of concern on her face made all the more heartbreaking by the way her head bobbed around as she passively let him work shampoo into her hair. All he could do was stare back, really. He couldn't really tell her what was wrong if he wanted to. Because he didn't really know at the time. It was only later on that night that it hit him. She was asleep in the crook of his arm, with her face in his chest, breathing slow in her sleep. He was hyper aware of the feeling of her against him. It was a strange sensation. And it was then that he realized that he was scared for the first time since Devin Weston had sent Merryweather to his house. The night he though he might come home to find his wife and daughter dead.

Michael pulled up to Lester's a short while later. He banged on the door twice before he heard the whine of the surveillance camera turning toward him. He was unceremoniously buzzed in. He walked into Lester's office to find him sifting through a pile of documents. "You've retreated back to the analog way of doing things, have you?" Michael quipped, though his heart wasn't really in it.

"Don't be ridiculous. The digital world is my wheelhouse, my playground, and my refuge," Lester said absently, flicking through the papers. "Dammit!" he flung the documents back onto the computer desk.

"What is it?" Michael said, taking a seat on Lester's bed.

Lester took a pull off of his inhaler. "Oh, nothing," he hissed. "Just that I went over the documents that you recovered from Rice and Dabuque and they're essentially the same, except that Dabuque had surveillance footage from the night that you stole what might have been a warhead from Merryweather."

"We brought it back," Michael interjected.

"And that means that while I thought they were fucking us uniformly and laterally, it appears that they're fucking us in a more linear fashion and that by the time you get to Daschel, we could have a full-blown information bedlam to contend with."

"Lester," Michael said, rubbing his temple. "Mind telling me what the fuck you're on about?"

Lester looked at Michael as though he were speaking to a complete moron. "What I'm on about, _Michael,_ is that the deeper we get in to this, the more we're pissing off Merryweather, whether they care to hold press conferences or issue press releases or stay completely mum on the topic. We're giving them more ammo, and God only knows what kind of dirt they've got on us these days. My guess is that our next two targets have far more content in their files on us."

"Well, why the fuck didn't you think about this before, Lester? I mean, shit, ya _think_ that they wouldn't be the slightest bit suspicious when their board members turn up missing within a few weeks of each other? We're working as fast as we can."

"I _did_ think of that, Michael, but when I did, I was under the impression that whatever they had on the anonymous marauders that had been fucking with their corporate military machine was declassified for everyone." Lester sighed heavily. "We're gonna need to get Gretchen in with Del Gallo right away. No later than two days from now, before the big shareholder's meeting."

Michael stood up and cleared his throat. "That ain't gonna happen, Lest."

"Pushing it up won't be a problem," Lester said, turning to his computer. He began tapping the keyboard errantly.

"No, I mean about Gretchen. She's not going to be a part of it."

Lester paused his typing and wheeled around to look at Michael. "Did she say something to you about wanting out?"

Michael tugged at his collar and fiddled with the glasses in his hand. "It's my call, actually."

"Your _call?"_ Lester asked incredulously.

"Yeah," Michael shot back defensively. "My fuckin' call. You've never had a problem with me makin' calls before."

"Yeah, when there's a reason behind it."

"There is a reason, Lest. She almost got hurt when we hit Dabuque."

"But she didn't."

"So I wanna find someone else. A pro."

Lester leaned back in his seat. His impatience had dissolved and given way to utter confusion. He shrugged and fanned his hands out as he did so. "It's too late to find a pro, Michael. Come on, now. I reinforced our communication lines, I gave her very clear instructions and quizzed her on what to do if something goes wrong. She's set."

"It's no good, Lest. We either get a pro or I go in and hit the guy myself. We can keep your timetable but we need a new plan. And we leave her out of it."

Lester narrowed his eyes at Michael and looked him up and down. "What the hell is this about, Michael? You sweet on her or something?"

"She's not cut out for this shit, Lest."

"She took care of the first two, Michael. We wouldn't have gotten to them if it wasn't for her. Plus, she already has the plan memorized, her dress picked out, and just between you and me, she ain't gonna like that you came here and started making decisions for her behind her back. It's a pet peeve of hers."

Michael was getting impatient. "She doesn't even know what happened to those two guys after she trapped 'em, Lester!"

"She's our _in,_ Michael!"

"Not anymore!" he shouted. It was a jarring, guttural shout, reserved for his most angry moments. Lester had heard it before and so he didn't look all that frightened as he stared back at Michael. He did, however, appear to have gotten the memo. He looked at Michael the way someone looks when they know they've lost. He tented his fingers and sighed, looking down.

"Well, then I guess we'll need to come up with a quickie plan. It won't be as solid as the one before given my restrictive time window."

"You'll make the plan, I'll get it done. And you won't mention this little talk to Gretch. I'll talk to her about it myself when the time comes."

Lester was staring daggers at Michael, gnawing at his thumbnail for a moment. He paused and straightened his posture as his eyes came alive. "Are you sleeping with her?"

"Can it, Lest," he replied simply. He didn't want to get into the details with Lester. Not now, not ever.

"You are," Lester said pointedly, accusingly. "You're fucking _my_ personal assistant."

Michael turned on his heel and strode out of the room. "Call me when you've got a plan nailed down, Lest," he called behind him. His stomach was roiling with the panic of being found out. He walked to his car and leaned against the hood for a moment. He suddenly felt very out of control. This morning he'd woken up with a solid twenty minutes of feeling okay. He had kind of forgot about that wretched feeling in his gut from the night before. He watched her brush her teeth and put her clothes on and he ran his fingers through her hair, all kinky and tangled. And then he had to let her leave and it came back.

It had been two years since he'd clipped his therapist and, honestly, he had some pretty serious trust issues. Far too serious for him to begin trusting someone else just yet. He started the trek back to his house. Or that's where he thought he was headed. Until he missed his exit on purpose.

 

 Gretchen was on the sparse lawn of her apartment complex playing with a small contingent of neighborhood children who had gained access to the outdoor sprinkler system. The crew that consisted of herself, three boys, and a girl were taking turns chasing each other with the hose spraying one another. All of them were soaked. Gretchen had spent the day mostly elated after her little extended sleepover and now she was letting herself get lost in a more innocent pursuit than near-constant sexing, if only to cleanse her proverbial palate for when her blue-eyed scoundrel came calling again. She hadn't known it would be so soon.

It was her turn with the hose, but she was being merciful in spraying the kids even though they'd soaked her completely. Her billowy skirt was clinging to her legs and she'd had to knot it at the thighs so that she wouldn't fall over. Her hair was soaked, too, stuck to her face. They whooped and giggled as they evaded the cool water streams, hiding behind the mailboxes and low riders.

She saw Marcus, the oldest, stop running and look toward the street. Abel, Robert, and Elisa all followed his gaze. When Gretchen saw that they'd stopped playing, she turned around to see Michael staring at her from behind his car. "Is it safe?" he called to her. She smiled and blushed. She must have looked a state just then.

"Time out!" she called to the kids. She handed the hose to Elisa. "Take this out back, guys." Elisa was quick to comply, darting off to the side of the house. The three boys waited to get a good eye full of Michael before they ran after the lone girl among them. Gretchen bent over and grabbed her flip flops and walked toward Michael.

"Hi," she said. The smiled that he'd been wearing slowly slumped into a frown. Gretchen felt her expression mirror his. She stepped closer to him. "What's the matter?"

His eyes were soft, kind of dull and sad. "Nothin's the matter." He was lying. She had seen him wearing this same frown last night in the shower. It made her nervous. But at least he was looking her in the eye. That had to be a good sign. She looked down at her drenched clothes. She grabbed his hand and wordlessly pulled him behind her as she walked back to her apartment.

As soon as she'd finished changing, she walked out to the living room to see Michael sitting on her couch, clutching a framed photo in his hand. She walked to him and just stood and took him in like this. He seemed like a ghost of himself. "This your mom?" he asked, turning the frame toward her. It was a photo of she and her mother five years earlier. At her second "birthday" in the program. Pictures weren't usually a part of getting a new chip, but her sponsor had insisted. Gretchen's mother had been so proud that day. No mother should ever have had to be proud of something like that, Gretchen thought.

"Yeah," she replied. She rubbed the back of her neck. Michael took another gander at the photo.

"You look like her. Except for the...purple hair and lip piercing," he said with a smile. Gretchen smiled back, though she was a little embarrassed. The hair and the face piercing that she'd left behind all that time ago betrayed her age and her lack of scruples back then. She hadn't cared about blending in until a few years ago.

"Yeah. People say I have her eyes."

"And her smile." Gretchen stared at her feet. "What happened to put her in the wheelchair?" he asked.

Gretchen swallowed hard, but her answer came easy. A lot of people had asked. "Accident."

Michael looked up at her as he set the photo down. "What kind of accident?"

"It was a car accident."

"Was she by herself?"

 _Huh?_ Nobody had ever asked that question. Was it a strange question to ask? She couldn't tell. Her tragedy etiquette hadn't been needed in a long time. "I was with her," Gretchen answered quietly. Michael's face went slack with worry. "We were on our way back from visiting my dad," she said. "In prison," she added nonchalantly.

"Did you get hurt, too?" he asked hesitantly.

She walked to where he sat and took a seat next to him. She turned her head, pulled her hair out of the way, pushed her ear forward. "They had to reattach my ear," she said. "I was out for a few days." She could feel him run his finger along the scar. Gretchen had always been grateful that it was hidden.

She leaned back and looked at Michael, who was looking at her reluctantly. She couldn't take it after a moment and she shot up. "What's the matter? Please talk to me," she said, barely above a whisper. She looked down and saw he was shaking a little bit. "Michael..."

He cleared his throat and now it was obvious to her that he was struggling to sit still. "Last night I started having this...I dunno _feeling_ like..." he sighed. "Like a feeling of dread. And then it started again after you left this morning." Gretchen cocked her head at him. "It feels like it did when I used to have nightmares. Real bad ones, ya know? The kind that make you jump out of bed? It makes me sick to my stomach."

Gretchen sighed. She could tell by the way that he was kind of looking away from her that it was hard for him to tell her that. She moved closer to him. "It sounds like anxiety."

Michael snorted and fidgeted some more. "I was in therapy for a long time. I know a little about anxiety, sweetheart."

"Not worry, Michael, anxiety. Your jaw is tense, you feel nauseated and hot, you want to run but you can't move, and you can't see straight, might be a ringing in your ears. Am I in the ballpark?"

Michael laughed but he was also exhaling a deep breath. "Jesus, kid. If you tell me you can see the inside of my mind, it ain't gonna help."

"I can't read your mind, Michael. But I've been dealing with this for a long time. Have you had anything to drink today?"

"You offerin'?"

"I'll take that as a _no,"_ she called behind her as she got up and walked out of the room. She went into her bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. She read the label as she headed back out into the living room. She couldn't remember how strong these were. She hadn't had to take one in a while. She came back to Michael with one of the benzos and a full glass of water.

"Say, if  you know so much about this, maybe you can tell me how I calm down," Michael said. His breaths were getting shorter.

"You don't," she said, handing him the pill and the water.

"What'dya mean?"

"I mean trying to calm yourself down puts pressure on you and makes it worse. _That_ is going to help immensely, though," she said pointing to the pill.

Twenty minutes later, as prophesied, Michael was calm again. Gretchen was happy now that she hadn't tried to give him two as he might not have been able to walk. One seemed to be perfect. He was lucid, but he wasn't being devoured by his irrational fear any longer. He was laying on her couch, his head in her lap while she stroked his hair and smiled down at him. "You were right, gorgeous. Your magic pill worked wonders."

"You know I can't let you drive home, right? You'll have to stay here. I know it's not a museum like your place, but you'll be safe from whatever spooked you." She was only kidding, of course. She knew that there didn't need to be a stimulus for your brain to play a cruel trick on you.

Michael shook his head. "That's where you're wrong, Gretchy. I'm lookin' right at the thing that scares me most," he said.

Gretchen narrowed her eyes at him. "You talkin' about me?"

Michael pointed up at her. "You terrify me."

Gretchen waited for him to stick an addendum on that little bombshell of a statement, but it didn't come. "Why?"

Michael took her hand in his. "Because you made me remember that there's more to life than cheap thrills and spendy liquor. You wanna talk about puttin' pressure on a guy?" he strained to sit upright and when he did he turned to her and put his hand on the back of her neck, pulling her in close. "I was perfectly happy being miserable, Gretchen Sophia Enwright." He snorted again. "Jesus Christ. What was I thinkin' coming here, huh? You don't need to put up with my neurotic ass." He retracted his hand and leaned forward, sighing heavily.

Gretchen stared at the back of his head for a minute. "It's not about _putting up with you,_ Michael." He turned to look at her. "This isn't just about the...sex and the Merryweather stuff." He flinched when she said that. "I love talking to you and just being around you. I love that I drugged you so you couldn't get away." She nuzzled her face into his as he laughed. "Just be here. Be present, 'kay?" she whispered after a moment.

"Is that what you do? So you can look me in the eye when I'm in your mouth and show me your anniversary chips and your scars? Stay present?" He hooked his fingers into the hair on the back of her head and pulled her face to his. Gretchen bit her lip. She felt her shoulders go slack as though some osmosis had taken place and his touch had sent the benzos into her bloodstream. He pressed his forehead against hers.

"You said you wanted me to trust you, _'member?_ And I wanted for us to tell the truth. I trust _you_ with the truth about _me,"_ she said. Michael pushed his mouth into hers and kissed her, deep and slow.

"You trust me," he repeated before he kissed her again. Gretchen could only hum in the affirmative. He pulled her in closer by the waist and kept kissing her like that. It was desperate but slow at the same time. She felt tiny in his arms. "I need you to keep trusting me, okay?" 

Gretchen felt like the fear that Michael had brought into the walls with him had been sucked out of the room along with her own fears for him. For them. That little kernel of worry that had started last night and had erupted in the last hour. She was accidentally heeding her own advice to live right then, not to let anything take her out of the moment, but only because just then, nothing could have.

The day of the car accident, when she and her mother were still at the prison, her father had sent her mother away so that he could have a word with Gretchen alone. And Gretchen learned that he had spent much of his time inside those walls trying to formulate a compressed string of life advice to give her before she saw him again in three months. Something to tide her over.

What he told her that day amounted to this: There will come a time when you will fall in love. And it will be like getting your ankle snapped in a bear trap. It hurts no matter what, but if you try to pull out of it, it will be even more agonizing. You try to pull away from love and that love will visit you in your half-forgotten dreams and idle moments forever. He would later tell her, cruelly, that the reason that her mother couldn't walk while Gretchen could was because her mother had been struggling that day. Struggling against her love for him. And what Gretchen learned was that whoever snapped her in a bear trap should never be so cruel as her father.

_Please don't make me regret this._

 

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, dear readers. I'm sorry for those of you who were waiting for too long for me to churn out another chapter and thank you for wanting it. I realize now that I've spun a bit of a confusing yarn. This story requires me to go back and re-read what I've written to try and maintain logical consistency. If you feel I've failed there, feel free to let me know! I know this is a little bit short compared to what I usually deliver, but I wanted to give you guys something. You all inspire me. Thank you for reading! Comments are always appreciated.

Michael rested his gloved hands on each of the armrests of the leather EZ chair on which he sat. The feeling of his leather gloves on the leather upholstery was oddly comforting to him in the absence of a cigarette. He couldn't light up just yet. It could alert Del Gallo to his presence in this huge, modern yet sparsely decorated condo. He didn't want to spook him until he got what he'd come for.

When he'd asked for a speedy alternative to Gretchen doing another honey trap style sting on Del Gallo, Lester had delivered. A mere three days after his meeting with Lester, he was jimmying a lock and bypassing a security code, waiting for Lester to finish the job on his end. It was almost like a dance, really. The target was due home any minute. Michael had rifled through Del Gallo's desk already, searching for the smoking gun, but finding nothing of immediate interest. He pocketed the jump drives in there just in case, but he knew that Del Gallo was likely hiding the stuff they wanted in a more secure place. You don't become the golden grunt for a corporate war criminal by being sloppy.

The only other item of interest was a reinforced safe. No amount of safe busting experience was going to get this technological security behemoth open, so here he was, waiting for Del Gallo to make his entrance so he could gain access. In the dark and the quiet, he thought about Gretch. About what the hell he was supposed to call her besides her name or a therapist for when she would inevitably have a nervous breakdown having realized that she had become involved with one of the dirtiest criminals in the city of L.S. They'd never talked about what was supposed to happen when all this was over. They hadn't discussed whether or not she would be safe when it was over. The criminal stew that was this city had a way of keeping diagrams of every single associate. She sure as hell wouldn't be safe if she kept his company, he'd reasoned. At least, he couldn't fathom a way that she would be. She was already oblivious to her own tragedy. With him she stood little chance. He felt like he had turned her out when he should have turned her away. It made him feel filthy.

All these things he knew, and yet pushing her away now felt impossible. The sex was one thing. Having her talk him down from a ledge and then falling asleep in her lap was another. The night he'd gone to her house in his panic had been their first sexless one and it had been a game changer. It was hardly a sign of premature bed death, though. The next morning, he woke up to find her freshly showered, trying not to wake him as she opened her wardrobe. She was still clutching a pair of her panties in her fist as he made her cum twice with his mouth before she helped him off with his clothes. He wasn't going to be outdone by his own vulnerability, fleeting as it was. The sex was a little harder than usual. Michael was trying to cast off his lingering bout of self hatred from yesterday and he got lost in the act. Gretchen didn't mind, though. She even seemed to welcome it, spreading her legs wider gripping the sheets, keeping eye contact as she huffed out her voiceless little whimpers.

Now here he was, going behind her back, cutting her out without her say so. He'd have a thing or two to answer for when she figured it out. He inhaled a deep breath that stopped short on the exhale as he heard the chime of Del Gallo's alarm system, followed by the sound of him disarming the thing in short order. The clack of Italian shoes on the mosaic tile flooring.

"Hector," Michael said with faux-cheeriness. "So glad to finally meet you." He clicked on the small table lamp next to him, illuminating Hector Del Gallo's features, which were contorted into a fearful expression.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Just an admirer," Michael said, adjusting the glove on his right hand. "You don't get to be in the upper ranks of our nation's most prolific yet secretive security firm without acquiring a few fans."

Hector swiftly made for the door behind Michael, but only made it two steps before Michael stuck his foot out and tripped him, sending him face-first into the floor. He pulled Del Gallo up by the shoulders and saw that he had a cut on the now-crooked bridge of his aquiline nose. When the man spoke, his tone was one of shaky anger "What do you-"

"You're gonna want to get that cut checked out," Michael said, moving his gaze between the crimson well-spring on Del Gallo's face and the man's twitching, dark eyes. "And if you play your cards right, I'll let you live long enough for you to get yourself to a plastic surgeon."

Hector startled Michael with a sudden, cynical laugh. A laugh that he drew out for far longer than it took to match the venom of Michael's browbeating. "After what you did to Donnie and Pete? I'm supposed to believe you when you say you'll let me walk out of here?"

Michael studied the man, meditating on the dark trickles coursing down his face. "Do you have a better option, Hector? It's your home after all. You should be able to come and go as you please."

"I'm not telling you anything."

Michael blinked hard at him and shoved him hard onto the cream-colored couch. "That's up to you, Hector. But you should know that, out of the goodness of my heart, I rigged up a little scheme to _give_ you the option. Like I said, I'm a fan of your work," he sniped sarcastically. "So my buddy, he's a bit of a computer enthusiast? As we speak, he is planting evidence of some less-than-savory activities on your personal and work computers _and_ your mobile device. You're not going to be able to erase those files permanently until we're in the clear. And if we smell something foul between now and the time when we feel safe, that evidence is going straight to every news outlet on the west coast so fast it'll make your head spin. There'll be no time for you to have your friends in high places covering your ass."

"Unsavory activities?" Hector asked, staring blankly at the floor. Michael raised his eyebrows. That was the one phrase Del Gallo had ferreted out of his threatening little screed? Maybe this would be easier than he'd thought.

Few words were spoken between when Michael saw that he had this cat in a vice and when he stood over where Del Gallo knelt over his safe, which was small enough to be nested in an ornamental globe in his office. Del Gallo was swift in opening the thing, especially when he felt the barrel of Michael's gun pressing into the base of his neck. "Put the files on the desk, sit down, and put your hands flat in front of you." Michael shoved the extracted contents into a briefcase. The two men were silent as Del Gallo's hands slowly subsided in their quaking. His clammy hands were leaving condensation marks on the mahogany desk.

"You don't really think you're going to get away with this, do you?"

Michael glanced up at him. "Is there something else you didn't turn over to me? Something that might make me want to make you look like a monster to the rest of the world?" Michael said in the sort of chiding tone you might use on a toddler.

"We know there's more of you," Del Gallo continued. "We've been keeping files on you all for months."

Michael held up a folder and shook it at him. "I think I've made it clear that that's what brought me here, Hector ol' pal."

"There's you, and that psychopathic freak in the desert, the black kid..."

"And when I've finished what I set out to do, we'll be little more than a distant memory. Kinda like a bad dream. With a little luck and cooperation, I mean," Michael continued, ignoring Del Gallo's almost haunting recitation of their descriptions, distilling them down to their barest essence in the eyes of society.

"The only one we don't really know's the woman," Del Gallo said distantly. "But it won't be long 'til we sew that up, too."

Michael looked up at him. "There's no woman," he said without thinking. "We run a boy's club. You know all about those."

"The last night anyone heard from Donnie, he texted me a picture."

Michael felt his stomach sink, but he tried to conceal any outward show of trepidation. "Oh?"

"He wanted me to see the sweet young thing he bagged at the Tea Room. It was from behind, so I couldn't see her face. But I saw her tattoo."

Michael tasted the coppery bitterness of blood where he'd bitten down on the inside of his cheek. "So what?"

Del Gallo was trying to hide his emerging cockiness at this _secret bit of information_ that he had on them. A little smile was threatening to give him away. "So Petey was even sicker than Don. Night he went missing? He sent me a photo, too. He tried to take an upskirt picture of _his_ date under the table. Her legs were crossed, though..."

"There a nascent point here, Del Gallo?" Michael spat impatiently, his anger rising.

"That little chickadee was wearing the same shoes as Donnie's girl," Del Gallo said. He closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose as though he was savoring the memory. "Shale grey patent leather slingback peep toe pumps with little flowers tooled into them."

"A  _sweet young thing_ wearing heels in L.S.?" Michael said, feigning sarcasm. "Great story, Hector." He knew that he couldn't get defensive. If there was even a _chance_ that he could keep them from trying to sniff her out.

Hector opened his eyes and peered up at Michael, looking almost sheepish, but Michael saw now that this sick fuck was toying with him. "That was my last correspondence with my good friend Pete," Hector sighed. Michael couldn't tell if the lamentation was sincere or not. "Well, except for when he told me who she was."

Michael's blood was boiling now. He looked down at the ground and tugged his tie loose before he looked at Del Gallo again. The sonofabitch was wearing a smug expression, though that twisted smile had all but disappeared. Michael calmly walked behind the slicked-back, buttoned up war criminal before him. Del Gallo didn't move a muscle when Michael pressed his pistol to the back of his skull and pulled the trigger. He simply slumped over, twitching a little bit, as though he was getting the last _last_ word in. "Motherfucker," Michael spat at the corpse.

Ten minutes later, he was beneath an L.S. freeway overpass, flicking through Del Gallo's phone to find the infamous text messages that surely must have existed. Finally, he landed on Don and Hector's thread. Sure enough, a picture of Gretchen walking toward Price's car in that nothing of a burgundy dress graced the screen. _My company for the eve. Send her ur way when I'm done?_ Michael had to stop himself from retching. 

A moment later, the second offending photo in the Dabuque/Del Gallo thread turned up. A pair of legs, made iridescent white by the light of the camera's flash. The incriminating heel peeking in the corner. There was no text to accompany the photo. Michael scrolled down the thread a ways until he found what he was looking for. _Not a working girl. Chick from twelve steps I told you about. The mousy one. Ready to show daddy the goods and get addicted to my..._ Michael stopped reading and huffed out a frustrated and disgusted sigh. He squeezed the phone tight but stopped himself from chucking it up the cement incline. He pulled out his own device and dialed Lester.

 _"How'd it go?"_ Lester asked.

"Tell me what to do with his phone, Lest."

 _"Come again?_ "

"I have the guy's phone. What do I do with it?"

 _"Why do you have his phone?_ "

"There were pictures of Gretchen on it."

" _What?"_ Lester cried. _"How?"_

Michael took a pull off the cigarette he was now holding. "Both guys took photos of her the nights she was with them."

 _"You think they were doing counter-intel?_ "

Michael chuckled dryly. "No, I think that they were hopeless perverts and the world is lucky to have two less of them."

 _"Lose the phone, Michael. Just drop it wherever you are._ "

"The pictures, though..."

 _"I'll take care of that from here. You need to drop it where you are and get the hell out of there yesterday._ "

Michael tossed the phone up the grade and heard it strike the cement wall. "What about Gretch?"

_"What was she doing in the pictures?"_

"Nothin'. Neither one was of her face, but Lest, they might have gotten around. Especially after the two of them came up missing. I didn't get that information out of Del Gallo before I clipped him."

 _"Calm down, Michael,"_ Lester chided. He sighed. " _Let me think...I can do a preliminary trace on the message logs. Can I get you to give me time stamps."_

Michael looked up into the shadows where he'd tossed the phone. "No. But look, one of the messages said..." Michael sighed before he begrudgingly recited the message from memory "'My company for the evening. Want her when I'm done?' or something like that. The other conversation referenced her Narcotics Anonymous affiliation. Twelve steps, he called it."

_"I can work with that, Michael. In the meantime, we'll need to make sure she's isn't being tailed."  
_

"I ain't gonna let anything happen to her," Michael said absently.

He heard Lester guffaw dryly. _"I know,"_ he said before Michael heard the beep harkening the end of the call.

Michael shoved his phone back in his pocket. He pulled off his cigarette and looked around. He thought fast about what he was going to do with her. The possibilities, what was most viable, what she could stand. Assuming she'd be able to stand him after he'd gone behind her back. _Shit._ He pulled out his phone, ready to dial Franklin when something caught his eye. The date display on the phone. _Tue._ It was Tuesday. Meetings were on Tuesdays. Her meetings. Where at least one Merryweather fuck had known she attended. And was likely getting ready to use against her to figure out what happened to Price and Dabuque. There could have been others that Del Gallo had told. Someone could have eyes on the meeting venue right that second...

 

 

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another day, another chapter I wrote to keep you guys interested (hopefully the effort will be met with some success). Good news is I'm fairly sure I know where I want to take it and I also want to make it good since this will likely be my last fic for a while. I gotta write some original stuff, too. Thank you for reading. Much love to you all <3

Trevor was uncharacteristically calm in Michael's presence in those first moments after Michael entered his office at the strip club. Normally, Trevor made a point to taunt him, either with reminders of their past or with a grotesque kind of camaraderie that he would try to forge just to suffocate him. Today, though, Trevor had his feet kicked up on his desk, looking at Michael with a placid if not altogether sane expression as he dug a knife point into the mahogany desk. Michael was hunched over with his hands clasped in front of him, looking at his friend, hoping for some mercy. Not that Trevor owed him any, but he needed it now more than ever.

"I've already spoken to Lester. He's agreed to cover for her with her employers for as long as he can. Since you're in town, I figured you could help me take care of this," Michael told him.

Trevor licked his lips. "Still don't know what it is you're asking me to do," he muttered absently as he made little divets in the wood. Michael realized now that Trevor's calm was owed to the fact that he was coming down from something.

"I'm asking you to take care of her. Watch her. Maybe take her out of town for a while," Michael said, trying to hide the pleading in his words.

Trevor narrowed his eyes at him. "Why the hell do you have your panties in such a bunch over this, Porkchop? What's your angle?"

Michael shifted in his seat. "I don't have an angle, T."

Trevor shot up from his seat just then and Michael braced himself for the worst. Trevor walked around the front of the desk and took a seat on it, peering down at Michael. "Don't bullshit me, old pal!" he barked. "Twenty years of that's grown a little tired. Don't get me wrong," he said fanning his hands out. "I am simply _delighted_ that you're finally asking me for a favor, but a man in my position has to demand transparency, you understand?"

Michael rolled his eyes at the unspoken accusation. Trevor had never let go of his previous betrayal. Worse yet, his request made sense. He straightened up in his seat. "I went to clip that guy Del Gallo the other night..."

"I heard," Trevor said. "Pretty fuckin' uncool not to invite your running buddies to the party if you ask me..."

"I had to. It became time-sensitive."

"Fuck off," Trevor muttered petulantly.

"And when I was there, I discovered that Gretchen was clocked both nights we took care of business. With Price and Dabuque." Trevor looked up, intrigued but not appearing alarmed. "They didn't get anything solid on her that I know of. But they've got unlimited resources. They've got an intelligence team. Way I figure, they could figure out who she is real easy if they tried. And they'll try, Trev. I know they will and so do you."

"You're being paranoid. Anyway, if you're so worried about Gretchy girl squealing, what's stopping you from putting her under yourself? You _obviously_ don't need her anymore," Trevor lilted at him childishly. It hadn't stopped since Trevor came back into his life. The taunting. The constant attempts to ferret out information from Michael's psyche, which, as far as he was concerned, was his last vestige of privacy.

"Will you do it or not?" Dodging the question plainly wasn't a good angle. He should have rattled off a spiel about how he felt responsible for her because he got her into it, which would have been part of the truth, anyway. Trevor's eyes burrowed into him. What must have been under a minute felt like forever. Michael felt his mouth tighten, his eyes narrow to match Trevor's intensity. "For an old friend, T."

Trevor's eyes went lax again. Didn't _soften_ per se, but when he leaned back and looked down the bridge of his nose at him, he knew the inquisition was over. Trevor shrugged. "I guess. I could use a woman's company again if you know what I mean," he said, sawing his teeth across the end of his tongue. It looked gross, but was oddly tame for Trevor.

"Don't hit on her," Michael said.

"Who said anything about hitting on her," Trevor shrugged. "I need a spa day."

"So you'll take care of it?"

And with a jovial wave of his arm, Trevor said "Sure thing, old pal!" That settled that. Michael didn't want to leave it like that, but he didn't feel he had any other choice at this point.

"Good," Michael nodded. He glanced at his watch. "Her meeting's going to be getting out soon. Start there."

 

 

 

Gretchen drove down the Olympia Fwy. beating the dashboard whilst chewing on the styrofoam edge of a coffee cup. The caffeine in her bloodstream was doing cartwheels and the tubes of light refracted from the street lamps and office buildings made her flinch as they passed through her windshield. She was keyed up but it wasn't for nothing. _"Has anyone seen Peter?"_ The facilitator had asked the question right after the Serenity Prayer. Her trachea felt like it had dropped into her stomach at the question. The facilitator gave a stiff-lipped smile and a quick nod in acknowledgment of the silence that followed.

She didn't want to think about how she was responsible for his absence. Peter had been a strange enigma in his faithfulness to the meetings. Even if it had been out of sheer love of the power he garnered from preying on what he thought were the weak women in the program, he was always there. And now he wasn't and it was Gretchen's fault. She breathed raggedly through her nose while she scanned the radio for something that didn't repulse her. Maybe she could drive all night. Sleep on the beach. No. No, that would be ridiculous. That would be junkie behavior. What was the point of stopping the substance but keeping the baggage? None.

Forty five minutes is what it took for her to calm down enough to drop the cup from her mouth and lean back in her seat. Forty five minutes was, incidentally, the length of time it took for her to get home. She pulled up to the curb outside her building and quickly surveyed the outside for shadows. Satisfied that she was alone save for a few errant neighbors sitting on patio furniture enjoying idle, hushed conversation. She lugged her bag up her stairs and shoved the door open with her shoulder. Her movements were exaggerated with the weight of a sudden fatigue.

In her new found tiredness, she grudgingly brushed and flossed her teeth and took out her contacts before she washed her face. It was only when she patted it dry that she bothered to have a look in the mirror. She looked even more sallow than the chintzy vanity lighting typically made her. She lingered on her reflection for a moment. She realized unceremoniously just then that her recognition of herself was falling away. Her sense of right and wrong and the things in which she should and should not participate had become hazy at best when they weren't at war with one another.

She also recognized that this deep introspection was the same as the one that she confronted when she was in her first days of recovery. Those chemicals in her brain searching aimlessly for the places where they would either get their sweet reward, eventually settling in places where they could do the most good to continue basic life functions. She hadn't picked up a needle and a spoon in years and years. What was it, then? What substance had she deprived herself of that would make those feelings re-confer in her? She hadn't spoken to Michael in a few days. It was one of the longest stretches that they had gone without speaking since they'd first spent the night together. She hadn't had a desire to call him, really. Something had become different. Whatever it was they thought they were doing had taken on a life of its own outside of them.

The morning she'd last seen him, they'd had sex again (go figure). It was perfunctory but ravenous at the same time. He'd fucked her like she hadn't been fucked in years. It was desperate like always. It was hard. Michael had thrust into her like he had been fighting something off, taking turns between hovering over her and looking in her eyes as if to see if she was still with him and then laying on top of her, watching her out of the side of his eye. When she came, it was almost painfully intense and she suspected that his climax, which had been on the heels of her own felt much the same for him. She also imagined that he felt as spent and empty as she did after. When he rolled off of her, neither one made a move to cuddle the other like they usually did. They didn't speak a word to one another as they got dressed and they didn't touch again until he was leaving. He'd held her and pressed his mouth to her ear. "I'm so sorry, baby," he had said before he broke away and left without stealing another glance at her. And then she'd cried as she watched him out her window, getting into his car and driving away. She didn't know why she was crying, though. Now she stood, staring at herself in the mirror, grateful that she hadn't done so that morning. She tossed her hand towel indignantly into the sink before she backed out of the bathroom.

When she got to her bedroom, she sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the dark on the wall. She'd once heard that there was a black so black that the brain couldn't understand it. It simply didn't register. She wondered then what it felt like to be a deep-sea predator, looming about those parts of the great, wet abyss where you could see nothing, but some how survive. There were no visual cues to alert a body to right and wrong down there. No whale songs to lament the savagery. Only blackness and an ability to smell the weak. She was about to lay down and try and shut those thoughts out when she heard something. The sound of terracotta shattering. It was coming from her patio.

Her muscles seized as she listened for more. Once in a while, the kids from upstairs and the adjacent apartments would leap onto her patio from her own. She'd lost more than one of her herb planters that way, but she'd put the kabosh on it by hanging up some outdoor privacy screens around the perimeter. Her suspicion that it was not one of those kids was confirmed when she heard a deep, masculine voice huffing and swearing. _Not again._

She stayed perfectly still except for her foot, which she slowly moved beneath the bed, searching for the baseball bat that she had recently acquired for just such an occasion. She rolled it out from under the bed and hastily picked it up. She only needed to get out of the apartment. The prior break in had not made her more brazen, only more fearful. She crept down the hall sideways, trying not to disturb a single wall hanging lest she should alert the intruder to her presence. The patio door finally came into view. The hood vent light from her stove didn't offer much in the way of a view of what was happening. Suddenly, she saw the flame from a lighter flick on. The tiny movement startled her backward. She bumped into the wall sending a hanging vase off of its nail. It landed with a _thunk_ on the tile floor. She froze and instinctively looked to the floor where it had landed before she looked up at the patio where she could suddenly make out a figure. A tall one.

The patio door slid open and she gripped the baseball bat tighter in response. "Well, _hello,_ cupcake," came a smoky voice that was not immediately recognizable. The muscular arm moved to the wall and flicked on the kitchen light.

"Trevor?" Gretchen breathed quietly.

"The one and only, ma dear!" he chirped at her.

She felt her shoulders relax. The relief was so profound that she dropped it at her feet. She exhaled deeply. "What are you doing?" she asked. She was too relieved to be upset with him, but was still utterly confused.

Trevor walked to her and picked up the baseball bat at her feet, turning it over and rolling his eyes. "I thought you'd be happy to see me."

"That doesn't answer my question." She looked at his hand and saw that it was bloodied. Bloodied and holding a little glass pipe. _Oh for fuck sake._ He had been getting high. "And what are you doing with that?" she asked, pointing at the crack stem.

Trevor followed her eyes to the piece. "Well, I had to jump from the railing below to get to _your_ terrace and I needed some juice. It's a long jump," he said matter-of-factly before he shoved the pipe and lighter into the breast pocket of his flannel over shirt. 

"This apartment came with a door, ya know," she said sardonically. She decided to ignore the crack pipe.

"Oh, for fucksake," he sniped at her. "What'd be the point?"

She guffawed. "Uh..."

Trevor cut her off before she could continue. "Look, I followed you here from your meeting and-"

"What!" Gretchen barked incredulously.

Trevor pointed a bloodied finger in her face. "Gretchy, the first thing you gotta know about me is that I _hate_ being interrupted, especially when I'm trying to help someone out and _most_ especially when I'm lit, ya got that?" he chided.

Gretchen sighed and gestured for him to continue. "Sorry," she said sheepishly. She didn't know Trevor terribly well, but she did spend enough time with him to know that he was surely capable of going off half-cocked when he felt slighted. He reminded her very much of a violent, young teenager.

"I followed you home from your meeting and if someone had been here waiting for you and he had you locked in your bedroom and put a black bag over your head and tied you up like he was ready to put you on the spit, the _door_ would have most certainly spoiled the element of surprise." What he was saying made no sense on any level to Gretchen, so she decided to start with the basics, once she saw that he had nothing to add to his non-explanation.

"Why would someone be tying me up, Trevor?" she asked with a gulp.

The mischief that flickered in his eyes could have lit up a stadium. "Oh, cupcake, haven't you heard?" He booped her nose with his bloody finger. _"You_ have arrived."

Gretchen narrowed her eyes at him. "What?"

He leaned over and, as if they weren't alone, growled into her ear, "You're a marked woman."


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter felt a bit short to me. Not quite rushed, because it felt like it flowed pretty well while I was writing it. Anyway, I have come to the conclusion that I am going to need to write an outline for the remainder of the story so that I can sew it up without letting it become to trite. Thank you for reading. You guys rock.

Gretchen was so earnest that it almost seemed gimmicky. Up to this point, Trevor's access to her had been tightly controlled, regulated ad nauseaum to ensure that he wouldn't offend her delicate sensibilities, whatever those were to a former junkie. He hadn't thought she was all that dainty when he'd first seen her. While she was petite and wore a near-perpetual look of curiosity and, for some reason, put up with Lester's bullshit, she didn't seem like she could break all that easy. Not if her arm scars and lack of regard for what passed as feminine civility in L.S. were any indication. Trevor figured that she'd be far more passable in one of the Northern coastal cities where deliberately hiding your tits and face made you a bankable commodity. But now he saw something that Michael surely had but was probably too dumb and bogged down in his own bullshittery to recognize for what it was: sincerity.

Those first two nights that she'd been under his "protective custody" hadn't been easy. In a matter of hours, she'd grown stern with him. She'd turned the tables on him when he'd accused her of being a baby, using some kind of mental trickery to make _him_ look like the asshole. She'd only wanted to go home, she said. This was ludicrous, she told him. And she'd done so in a way that placed her well above him in terms of rationality. That wasn't hard to do, granted. He knew he was a mean-mugging, three-quarters crazy sonofabitch, even if everyone thought he was oblivious to it. But she had and edge where others didn't. She'd probably been as fucked in the head as he at one point. Only difference was that she got away with it because she had tits and less of an anarchic disposition than he had. So they weren't so different so far as he could tell.

On this particular day, just a few after he'd picked her up, permitting her to take a teenage runaway's backpack worth of clothing and little more before they stole off toward the club, he'd left her crashed out on the cheesy vinyl couch that she'd been avoiding up to that point because it was "goddamn fucking covered in glitter and stuff" as she'd put it. But he'd ran her ragged over the course of those few days, pretending to take his duty as her protector seriously so he had someone to yammer at while he was conducting business throughout San Andreas. He had toted her around like a piece of furniture that occasionally accepted his peace offerings of fast food. If she nodded off while they were driving, he barked at her to stay awake. But it finally caught up to her. Now, upon his arrival back at the club, he found her as he'd left her. Laying supine with her arms crossed, boots on, and a peaceful look on her sleep face. She was using his flannel shirt as a pillow. She clutched her glasses in one of her hands. He grabbed her foot and shook it about. When that didn't rouse her, he did it more forcefully until her head shot up, her peaceful expression becoming washed over with a pained, irritated one. "Yeah, yep, up!" she barked absently. She sniffled and stretched and writhed for a minute.

"Up and at 'em, sweet cheeks. Time to hit the road."

She clumsily put her glasses back on and glanced at her wrist watch, sighing and flopping her arm back on the couch. "What day is it?" she whined sleepily.

"I've been gone for six hours, girly. Get up, I'm homesick."

"Huh?"

Trevor scoffed. "I've been in L.S. for _way_ longer than I wanted to be, thanks to you. I wanna head back up North. We're going to Sandy Shores."

Gretchen screwed her face up in disgust. "The Alamo Sea?"

"The very same," he replied sarcastically. He hadn't lost his patience with her _quite_ yet, but he was in rare form today. He wasn't screwing with her, he really had grown tired of this round of L.S. living and it was very much her fault that he was still there.

"Why can't I just go home? I'm tired," she said, rising to her feet.

Trevor rolled his eyes. Not _this_ bullshit again. He leaned down to get closer to her eye line. "Now, now. I've put too much time into this tour to go AWOL now, Gretchy girl. You can either come quietly or I can cold cock you and throw you in the back of the truck like roadkill. What'll it be?"

"Quietly," she answered instantaneously.

Within a matter of minutes, they were out the door, she with her sad, droopy little backpack over one shoulder, he with a new swagger in his step in anticipation of showing her his stomping grounds.

As promised, Gretchen remained quiet over the first half of the drive. She slumped down in her seat, resting her head against the door, watching the miles roll by while she _maybe_ listened to Trevor's ramblings about why the Los Santos metro area was _way_ trashier than Blaine County. "Ya know, maybe Ron was right about lizard people and shit. I mean, half the people that walk into those _surgical arts_ centers walk out in completely different skin..."

At some point, Gretchen's detached grunts of acknowledgment at his thoughts started to get extra boring, and he pulled over to top off and swipe a couple forties from the beer cooler at one of the only beacons of light in the dark desert. He gave some thought to making a scene of his little shoplifting adventure if only to stir some kind of animus out of his traveling partner (no doubt she'd throw a fit if this trip was upended by a police chase or a shootout), but when he left the store undetected, he walked out to find Gretchen in another kind of a fit. A scratching fit.

He got into the driver's side and looked over to see what she was doing. She was scratching ferociously at her belly and one of her flanks, muttering curse words under her breath. Trevor was intrigued. "What, uh...What seems to be the problem, there Gretch?" She looked over at him with a hint of pleading in her eye and suddenly his amusement had shrunk about two sizes.

"I'm really itchy," she said quietly, sounding almost like a child.

"I gathered that," he sniped at her. "I'm wondering _why_ you're itchy. You jonesin'? You get bit or something? Let's see it."

She looked hesitant at first, but she was obviously in great discomfort. She got up on her knees and let him pull her shirt up to look. It wasn't psychosomatic, that was for fuckin' sure. A big, patchy rash, hot to the touch was wrapped around her from her belly button to her back. "Sweet mother of fuck!"

He looked up at her face which was wearing a less-than-pleased expression at his little outburst. "I didn't know that scabies could live on shitty vinyl couches," she groused. Trevor inspected the rash more closely, moving her torso from side to side at a whim. She didn't try to wriggle away, though. Just passively let him maneuver her about.

"Hey, I run a clean establishment. This ain't scabies, sweetheart."

"What makes you an expert?"

Trevor squinted at the rash and then did something that _finally_ got a reaction out of her. He leaned in, buried his nose into her inflamed skin, and inhaled deeply. She gasped sharply and immediately started squirming, but he didn't let her go until his suspicion was confirmed. He chuckled as he let her go. She plastered herself against the passenger side door and looked at him with a mix of shock and disgust.

"What the hell?" she exhaled.

"It ain't scabies," he repeated as he fired up the engine and pulled away from the pump, back onto the highway.

"How do you know?" she asked once her little adrenaline surge at having a criminal mastermind with a fondness for speed stick his face in her belly had subsided.

"Because I found the cause. I mean, you were right about picking it up from that couch, but it's not bugs. You allergic to lube?"

By the look on her face, you'd think he'd wielded his dick at her on public transportation or some shit. "Wh-what?" she stammered.

"Or maybe it's fragrances. You come off as one of those granola girls that never let's cheap perfume touch her virgin, papery flesh."

"There a nascent point your building to, Trevor?" she asked him.

He cleared his throat and looked over at her, amused at how quick she'd gone from frightened to impatient. "Story time. Couple of months ago, I was enjoying my shifter of a brew and a lap dance, which were both divine, by the way. But lo and behold, a few hours later, I got this wicked rash on my belly and my face were Fancy'd been rubbing her tits all over me. Come to find out that she'd been using some new oil-based, fruity-smelling grease to make her tits an ass pop under the house lights and the combination didn't sit well. That thing on your stomach smells like the stuff that fucked me up. Like citrus."

Gretchen's face went slack, blank but for a tinge of disgust. "You're telling me that I have a rash because I slept on a couch covered in a combination of boob sweat and lube?"

Trevor snorted. "If you wanna oversimplify it, yeah." She let out a dry, whiny sob and buried her face in her hands. He scoffed in response. "Come off it, Gretchy. You've got a great story to tell your rosy-cheeked little grandkids and as far as we know, the rash ain't going to spread anywhere that might make anyone kick you out of bed."

Ignoring his attempt at optimism, she groaned "What the fuck has happened to my life?"

Trevor felt his eyes get wide. He looked over at her again. She had a sad pallor on her face as she sighed quietly. "Oh, come on," he said only half-heartedly trying to cheer her up, to see things _his_ way. "You risked your life twice, shaking your ass at war criminals so we could get some computer thingies that could get us thrown in some off-shore tin can for the rest of our lives and you've got your panties in a twist over a fucking _rash?_ Don't be so pathetic! We'll get you a shower and some calamine lotion and you'll be good as new!"

She didn't seem offended at his scathing criticism of her misplaced priorities. "It's not about the rash, Trevor," she said through a quiet but strained voice. "It's about all of this. I let my life get _completely_ out of control _again."_ She shook her head and leaned it back against the headrest, swallowing and blinking back tears.

"Are you kidding me? Do you know what kind of doors this opens up to you, nay, _all of womankind?_ We're going to make you the greatest lady queen of all criminals in a few month's time! Look at what we did for Franklin! That kid's a fucking wunderkind because of us!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" she said, not holding back her tears now. _Jesus._ He'd only been trying to help. "I just wanted to keep Lester out of prison and then all this shit happened and now I'm in the desert trying not to get black-bagged by war criminals! I'm a fucking idiot!"

Trevor was at a bit of an impasse and moreover, he hated when chicks cried, and more moreover, he hated how fucking _negative_ she was being. It's like she was sapping his very life force. He cracked open one of the forties he'd swiped and took a long chug. He waited for his passenger to chide him for drinking and driving but she stayed quiet except for her quivering voice that shook a whimper loose every couple of seconds. "So walk away, Gretchen. If you're _that_ terrified of what we do, then walk the fuck away. Don't be a professional victim."

"I dunno if I can," she said, staring back at him with wet puppy eyes, wiping snot on her sleeve.

"And why the fuck not?" Her face went blank again. She squinched her eyes shut, eeking out the surplus of tears in her eyes before wiping them away and sniffling. She straightened her back and looked ahead, avoiding his eyes suddenly. Trevor pressed his lips together and shook his head, laughing suddenly at his blindness. Blindness to something that he'd loosely suspected and realizing that he'd just caught a really big fish without meaning to. He pulled off of the interstate and into a dust bowl dug out by the side of a frontage road. Off in the distance, just a little ways, were the great, big, reinforced walls of Bolingbroke Penitentiary. It was almost _too_ perfect and _too_ auspicious that the truth had just appeared to him out of nowhere in this place.

Gretchen didn't say anything but he could sense apprehension in her as she stared at the prison. The prison where _Brad_ was said to be before Trevor had found his carcass in the frozen ground up North, far the fuck away from the truth. He turned to Gretchen and took another slug of his beer, offering it to her. To his simultaneous surprise and pleasure, she gingerly took it from his hands and took a pull off of it. She knew what was coming. "So," Trevor lilted at her. "You and Michael, huh?" She looked at his lap but didn't say anything. Her eyes fluttered. "So, what is it? A little school girl crush? A longing glance here and there?"

Gretchen started scratching at her stomach again like a squirrel digging for a nut. She still didn't look at him. "I'm-I'm sorry," she stammered. "I shouldn't have gotten emotional. I'm just tired, I think. I'll be better after I get some-"

"Did you fuck him?" he asked. He said it in the most measured tone he could muster. He hadn't wanted it to sound so brash, but he wasn't trying to coddle her either. And here is where he discovered her sincerity. Again, completely by accident. He grabbed her hand and stopped her scratching. "Did he fuck you and then tell you that he _loved_ you?"

"No," she shot, finally meeting his eyes.

 _Michael._ The fucking scoundrel. The dirty fucking shit-loving rat dog. "Did he work you until he got you in the sack and then make you feel loved and then pawn you off on me so he wouldn't have to feel _guilty_ about leaving you?" At this point, even _he_ knew that he was speaking more to himself than to her. All that progress that they made rebuilding their friendship, of Trevor instilling his trust in his old, traitorous fuck of a friend only to have history repeat itself with this sweet, tight little dupe? He was taking this  _very_ fucking personally. "This is just fucking typical. I should've known he'd be back to his old ways. Should have _fucking_ sniffed it out when this whole thing began."

Gretchen stared at him frightened and shook her head at him slowly. "What are you saying?" she asked quietly.

Trevor looked at her, invigorated somehow. He stared hard into her unblinking face. "Sugar, I'm sorry if your old man is dead or whatever, but let me be the first to tell you that Michael De _fucking_ Santa is not a suitable replacement."

She seemed to be in denial or something. Because she stayed quiet for a minute and when she spoke next, she took him by surprise. "My dad's not dead," she said, sounding a million miles away.

"What? Didn't hug you enough?" he asked quizically.

She looked away. At first he thought she was flinching or that she was averting her gaze so she could cry again, but then she pointed at the prison. "He's in there," she said. She said it so flat, so matter of factly. All this truth that they were uncovering together was anesthetizing them both. _Fucking perfect._ Trevor was only allowed to be steeped in the twisted fucking poetry of this moment for a second before she turned back to him. "What do you mean Michael's back to his _old ways,_ Trevor?"

Trevor smiled at her, still unsure of what he wanted to come of all this. He'd always felt like Michael was playing a little too close to the vest, even after their half-assed reconciliation. He put the truck into gear and pulled onto the road again.

"I _mean_ that you and I are going to spend some time together exorcising _your_ daddy issues and _my_ latent trust issues, little lady."

Gretchen didn't press further as they made the rest of the way to Sandy Shores. And the closer they got, the less she scratched.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know, you guys. This is getting so long. But dammit, I've almost got the fucker worked out. So I hope you'll stick with me because I love you. I thought about breaking this up into a series, but hopefully a really long story will suffice. Without further adieu, here is the next chapter.

She was safe for now. Of that, Michael was sure. She was living in the belly of the beast, nestled safely in the psychotic reactionary proclivities of Trevor. And that was the safest place she could be. He couldn't have outsourced a greater madness, so he knew that she would be okay if Trevor could keep his shit together. And the funny thing was that he was almost certain that he would. Trevor, when given a primary directive, was kind of like an eager kid who had been given the responsibility of looking after a small wounded animal, and did so with great care. It was twisted, really, considering that most people that had made Trevor's acquaintance would have pegged him as the kind of person who would twist a wounded animal's head off given half the chance. But Gretchen would be okay with him for now. That sated him for the first few days. He still couldn't bring himself to call her and he was half-relieved and half-disappointed that she hadn't tried to get a hold of him, too.

In the forty eight hours since Trevor had informed Michael that he was taking Gretch out of the city, Michael had done a lot of the things that he had before all this started. He drank by his pool, visited the cinema, and drank some more. He woke up when he had a night terror and pretended to sleep when the adrenaline drained from his body. He emptily scoped out another score that Franklin had clued him in on. But it still didn't feel like before. It was the third day, when he absently picked up the sport coat that he'd been wearing last time he saw her and heard that rattle, that something had stirred in him. The rattle was a prescription bottle. Her prescription bottle. She must have stuck it in there. He picked up the little orange cylinder and read the label. _Gretchen Enwright. Alprazolam .5 MG Tablet._ Holding the little tube in his hand sucked him into some kind of trance. He thought he could hear her speaking to him from hundreds of miles away just then. Could practically hear her telling him _You're the one that needs saving, Michael. You're the one that needs to be sequestered. Not me._

A sharp pain penetrated his chest as he dropped the bottle onto his kitchen counter and absently watched it roll away, stopping short of the other edge. He felt that familiar fear rise in him. That absolute fog that seeped into his head and made him unable to think or do anything. He didn't have anyone to talk to. Friedlander had been his only real outlet, but of course, that confidence had been duly broken. Michael took a deep breath, resolving then not to let that shit devour him right then. He reached across the table and picked the bottle up again. His eyes scrolled over the words once more, half taking them in. First he just ruminated on her name. _Gretchen Enwright. Gretchen. Enwright._ After a while, he looked to the bottom of the label. There in tiny print was something tangible. Something that assured him that these pills hadn't materialized out of nowhere. They weren't props in some elaborate hoax that Gretchen was a pawn in. _Prescriber: Dr. Damon Argus._

After a while, his breathing regulated and he felt slightly more human, but he still felt like he was dreaming. He pulled out his phone. It was a lark at first, really. But then he was on the internet, searching for Dr. Damon Argus. There was only one in L.S. County, miraculously. A 'therapeutic artist' with a private practice in the Vinewood Hills. He pulled out his phone and dialed the number that he'd memorized from Dr. Damon Argus' website.

As he drove toward Argus' office, Michael realized then that perhaps it wasn't a _good_ thing that he'd been able to get an appointment so easily and without a referral. He also didn't know what the hell he was going to say to this guy when he got there. He wondered what awaited him upon his arrival. It wasn't long before he realized that he'd reached the street on which Argus' home-based practice was said to stand. A quiet cul-de-sac that was modest in its architecture compared to much of this area. He knocked at the huge, mahogany door and was promptly met with the sight of a squat man in his early sixties by the look of it. The guy was almost perverse in his friendliness, probably had a screw loose himself, which told Michael that he was, indeed, a bonafide psychotherapist.

"Mr. DeSanta?" he chimed from beneath his thick, grey mustache.

"Doc?" he answered tentatively, fighting the urge to get the hell out.

Argus wordlessly gestured into the dark house. It was a smallish place. Against his better judgment, Michael followed him into his small office. It was a far cry from the modern, beach chic environment that Friedlander had cultivated. Lots of old wood and dusty books and busts of ancient dead guys decked the walls. Michael sat on the green leather couch across from where Argus sat in his EZ chair. The old man had a yellow legal pad in his lap, poised to write, but he just stared at Michael for a moment from behind his small, round glasses.

"Er, thanks for seeing me on such short notice."

"Last minute cancellation," the old man said flatly but pleasantly. "So, you're having some anxiety issues, I understand?"

Of course he'd have to fucking understand. The guy didn't have a receptionist. They'd spoken about it directly. Michael inhaled sharply.

"That's right. I'm losin' my fuckin' head," Michael stated plainly.

The plain language brashness did nothing to faze Argus. "I'd say about a hundred percent of the people that come through those doors complain of anxiety," he replied. "I'm something of an expert on the topic. Is that how you found me? Did you hear about my latest book?" he asked.

"I thought all shrinks were supposed to be experts on anxiety."

Argus chuckled warmly. "Yes, but I'm a leader in the field." The way he said it didn't even betray the slightest bit of arrogance. "I've carved out something of a niche working with former soldiers. And individuals with substance abuse issues. I prefer to get to the root cause of those feelings."

Michael flinched at his new trigger word 'soldier,' (the whole Merryweather thing had put him off of the moniker, it seemed) and stared down his aquiline nose at the guy. "A friend recommended you," he said tersely.

"So you've discussed this with a friend?" he asked, jotting something down on his pad. "That's a step in the right direction."

"Yeah. She, uh...Doesn't know that I came to see you, though."

Argus raised his eyebrows. "A female friend? Terrific. Anything you'd like to share about that?"

Michael felt his resistance wearing down. Thinking about her in his solitude had been painful. Having her brought up created a strange brew of tension and simultaneous relief, though. "I slept with her. Might have fallen for her a little bit."

"Where did you meet her?"

"Through work."

"What is it you do?"

Michael barely stirred at the question. "I'm a thief." He braced himself for a curious look but was surprised when nothing registered on the good doctor's face. Argus jotted more down onto his pad.

"And how long have you been working in finance?"

Michael narrowed his eyes at him but felt his face go slack when he realized that the guy was serious. "Twenty five years, give or take," he said, not seeing fit to correct him now. This guy was definitely a bit of a kook.

"And your friend," Argus said, meeting his eyes now. "She's a thief, too?"

"No," he answered immediately. "She's nothing of the sort. She got pulled into this through an outside association. I think that's why I'm here."

"Tell me more about that."

Michael rose to his feet, almost involuntarily. He took a moment for himself, pacing the room, staring at the judgmental mugs on those old busts before he turned his attention back on his doctor. "I've spent my whole career feeling guilty about what I do. All the people that I've hurt, including my family. And then about a year and a half ago or so, things changed. I got into contact with an old colleague and a new one, too. Pulled me out of retirement, actually." He found himself collapsing back onto the couch and leaning back. He felt so tired all of a sudden. And truthful. Shit. It's like he couldn't help but tell the truth just then. Like all his lies had been deductibles and he was paying the piper now. He saw the doctor cross his legs out of his periphery. "But one of the jobs went bad and we pissed some people off. And this girl-er, woman, she offered to help us put out a fire. But now she's in trouble because of it and it's my fuckin' fault, doc. And the guilt? It's the fuckin' worst I've ever felt. And that makes me feel guilty. Feeling more guilty about what I'm doing to this woman than I did about what I did to my family. I mean, what the fuck does _that_ say about me?"

He found himself panting lightly after his little screed, partly because the air felt like it had been sucked out of him and partly because he was feeling that dark fear again. All because he was being honest with himself.

"You said you were falling for her?" the doctor said, glancing at his pad. "Can you tell me more about that?"

 Michael sat up and looked the doctor. He didn't know if it was this dream-state that had brought him here that was making him feel so verbose or if it was Dr. Argus himself, but he was feeling way to goddamn honest for his own good. He shook his head and shrugged before he continued. "I put it down to loneliness at first. Ya know, having a woman look at me like that? Without a fuckin' hint of disdain in her eyes like my wife. Or a look that says 'Give me whatever you got in your wallet and I'll give you fifteen minutes of my time.' Honestly, I thought she was kind of a child at first. Wanting to please us big boys by bein' a good little helper."

"And now?" Argus interjected.

"Now she's in my head at all waking hours and if you told me right now that I could spend the rest of my miserable fuckin' life in a white, windowless room staring at her until I was nothing but a bloated carcass, I'd jump at the chance."

Argus stared at him with a look of stern curiosity for a moment before he spoke. "Have you told her how you feel? About your obsession with her?"

Michael marveled then at his own failure to take exception to the accusation of being obsessed. "I can't tell her dick because I had to send her away so that she'd be safe. Like I said, she's in trouble because of me. And she's probably royally fuckin' ticked at me for doing it. I didn't exactly ask her permission, ya know?"

Argus was silent for another moment. He put his legal pad on the end table beside him and rose to his feet, making his way to one of the bookshelves that lined the room. He sauntered along the wall muttering to himself for a while before he pulled a red hardback book out of the shelf, studying it for a minute before holding it up to Michael. The thing looked old. "You ever heard the story about Zeus and Io?"

"Sorry?" Michael said.

"The story of Zeus and Io? Surely you've heard of Zeus?"

Michael's head was swimming even more now, paddling and sputtering in that channel between what made sense and the sudden bullshit that this kook was spouting. "Yeah, I've heard of Zeus."

"'Course you have," said Argus. "Well, Zeus was married to the goddess Hera, but one day, this sweet young maiden caught his fancy and he made love to her while trying in vain to hide it from his equally omniscient and incidentally jealous bitch of a wife, Hera. See, even gods wanted some strange now and then, and nobody was better equipped to float their egos than mortals."

"Doc, I-"

"So, Hera essentially walked in on Zeus bedding Io and in order to cover his ass, Zeus promptly turned her into a cow, which he was forced to gift to Hera who was on a sudden, jealous, narcissistic head trip. She had Zeusie boy's balls in a vice and she knew it.  Hera sent the cow to wander around, trapped in a body that wasn't her own, though she made sure that she had a spy to keep Io away from Zeus. When that plan failed, she sent some flies to sting and torture her into madness, which worked."

Michael stood in stunned silence as Dr. Argus clutched the book to his chest and kept telling the story. Or lecturing. Whatever the fuck he was doing. "Luckily, Io the cow fell under the tutelage of another imprisoned soul, Prometheus, who gave her just enough hope to keep wandering for a bunch of years. She was still getting the shit end of the stick for banging Hera's betrothed, but she knew that eventually, she would have her two legs and tight ass back and she wouldn't have to spend forever grazing by the great tributaries of the world."

Michael swallowed hard, hoping that this little diatribe had an expiration date. "What's this have to do with me and Gr-er, the woman in _my_ story?"

Argus pressed his lips together and shot Michael a downright devious stare before he tossed the book at Michael. Michael startled at the act, but caught the book in his hands. He stared down at the leather-bound edition in his hands. He could smell the old book smell coming off of it. He stared up at Dr. Argus. "Michael," he said, almost sounding indignant. "Zeus was a _god_ and he couldn't keep his shit together. And there is nothing in all the literature I've read," he said, pointing at the book, "to indicate that Io bore any kind of animosity toward him for that. She was too busy fighting off the flies."

Michael cleared his throat and shook his head. His patience was fading. "Listen, pal. Thanks for the classics lesson, but it ain't even a _band-aid_ for my situation. Tell me what the hell I'm supposed to do."

Argus smiled at him, a smile that could have easily been mistaken for a grimace. "The answer is in that book, Michael. Go home and imbibe those words. Spend some time with them and the gods will come to your aid. Now, get the hell out of my office."

When Michael got his car, he tossed the book in the passenger seat. He stared blankly ahead and buried his face in his hands, exhaling sharply. The swimming sensation in his head was beginning to subside, but he didn't feel like he was any better off than he had when he first walked through those doors. He sat for a moment, trying to untangle the allegorical web of bullshit that had just been spun before his eyes when Gretchen crept back into his mind. It came to him slowly, but it was potent. It wasn't right what he'd done. Panicking like that. Shipping her off to be with Trevor of all people. What the fuck was he thinking? He wasn't allowed to send her away to cover his own ass from his guilt. Especially given how he felt about her. For the first time in a while, his guilt wasn't crippling him. It was motivating him. He needed to go and get her. Bring her back. She could stay with him. He would protect her. He would sort this shit out because _he_ had gotten her into it.

His head emptied, little by little. He turned to the passenger seat and picked up the book. It felt strange in his hands. Lighter than it should have. He thumbed the gold lettering on the cover. _Greek Mythology,_ it read simply. He opened the cover and began flicking through the pages until he found what Argus had wanted him to find. Nested in the book's center, instead of a few hundred pages of epic stories, was a tiny box. A sample box of pills. Alprazolam. .5 milligrams. He laughed quiet and suddenly to himself as he plucked it out of the book.

_Motherfucker._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, my lovelies. Do leave me a comment if you've got a moment.


	16. Chapter 16

Trevor had come to enjoy having Gretchen around. Sure, it was brief, but like any bender he'd had, he had fostered a weird intimacy with her. The two of them locked in his trailer, her listening to his nonsense, laughing occasionally. And the laughter was the greatest relief of all because she'd gone a little bit catatonic after he'd told her _The Ballad of Trevor and Michael._ She didn't ask any questions, just got all teary and stared at him while he told her about the world's greatest betrayal. Barely even flinched when he told her that he was sure that Michael was taking the same approach with her and that the best she could do was to run. Or to make Michael's life hell to the best of her ability. "I think I already have," she'd said quietly. 

What made this bender different was that she wasn't using and he was surprised to see that she didn't even seem tempted by the prospect of smoking with him. He really thought that she'd get off that high horse of hers if he wore down her resistance just a little bit but...Nothin'. She was a fortress. Either that or she was still sore at him for telling her about what Michael had done to him. But he'd only been trying to help for fuck sake. And he'd told her as much on that very first night.

"See, that's what he _does,_ Gretchen. He uses people and then throws them away. The only reason he keeps me around is because he knows next time, I'll have his fuckin' head for it," he'd said as he paced. He watched her face get flushed as she bit her lip and shook her head, trying to fight back tears since she now knew that he hated watching a woman cry. He'd knelt down at her feet. "Every time he made sa-weet, sweet love to you, he was siphoning out a little more of your soul. So, what do ya say? Whatever's in your bank account, I'll quadruple it and put you on a bus to wherever you wanna go and you'll never have to hear from that no good fuck ever again!"

Gretchen looked up at him, plainly straining as she spoke. "What the hell is it to you? Why are you so easy to get me out of the picture?" Smart girl, she was. Trevor knew that if he _wanted,_ he could tell her the whole truth. That he didn't think that Michael had changed at all in spite of everything that had unfolded since Trevor forced their paths to cross again and that burned his ass, so he kinda wanted to take her away from Michael to teach him a lesson about using people. And also that much of this was an outgrowth of Trevor's latest bender. But since she didn't know him well enough to understand how he operated, he opted for a softened, diet version of the truth.

He shrugged. "Well, Gretchen, I dunno if you've been paying attention to what's going on around here, but you've got a bunch of pissed off war-loving fuckheads on your scent. It'd probably be in your best interest to get the fuck outta here fast before you end up in the back of some military paddy wagon headed straight for the Caribbean." Gretchen sighed heavily but didn't look up at him when he took a seat next to her. "Of course, you're welcome to stay here and be my concubine if you so choose, I ain't gonna complain." He leaned back and folded his hands behind his head and stared at her. She was leaned over, turned away from him. He couldn't see her face, streaked red with the caustic tears of betrayal, tears that Trevor had shed in his solitary moments after he found Michael alive.

Trevor scratched himself and began letting his thoughts idle for a few moments while Gretchen remained silent. Finally, she turned to him. Her face was tired and disclosed a broken heart. She looked battered. "You really think he's incapable of...caring? About other people?" She straightened her back and looked at him more intently. "You're his best friend. And you think he doesn't love you? Is that really how you feel?"

He looked at her a bit longer, at her anguished face while he digested her words. He sat up so that he was shoulder-to-shoulder with her. He'd asked himself many times if he thought that Michael truly gave a shit about him. Obsessed about it until he became frustrated and busted a stranger's lip open for the sheer relief of it. Because he always arrived at the same conclusion. That there was no way that someone that loved you would do that. Abandon you so callously. But now that he had Michael's dish in front of him, bringing that giant fucking question out into the open air, he found himself thinking about it further. She turned her body to face his. "Hasn't he ever done anything to make you feel like he cared? There has to be _something,_ right? I mean, why would you stay friends with him if he didn't?"

Trevor narrowed his eyes at her. He got up from where he sat and began skulking back and forth in front of her while she looked up at him with her round, pleading eyes. "Look here, missy," he snapped, "I've known that fuck for a lot of years and your adorable little ideas about him being _caring_ would make me laugh in your face if they didn't turn my stomach. I think I know a thing or two about that bloated, traitorous asshole!"

She sprung to her feet, that look of absolute angst having returned to her face. "I just want you to tell me if he ever did anything that made you believe he was good! Tell me so I don't feel crazy! Like I was blind the whole time! Please, Trevor," she yelled at him, her voice wobbling with emotion.

Trevor pulled the door to the trailer open so hard that it slammed into the wall before he stepped out into the night air. "Cock sucking motherfucker," he muttered to himself as he started toward his truck. This girl needed some cool off time. And so did he before he twisted her idealistic little head off her shoulders. Fact was, her getting all sentimental was dragging up the last of the emotional sediment at the bottom of Lake Michael and he wasn't fuckin' having it.

"Trevor, please! I feel so alone!"

He stopped and leaned on his truck, huffing and puffing while his anger seethed inside of him. After a moment, he lifted his head to look at her. "Well, just what in the _fuck_ did _you_ mistake for kindness, Gretchen? Besides him shagging you from here to Timbuktu, what in the _fuck_ did he do to make you think that he gave a shit?"

"What?" she said mousily.

"You heard me!" he barked, getting into her space now. "What _nice things_ did Pork Chop do to make you think he could give a fuck about anyone but himself, huh?"

Gretchen narrowed her eyes at him and then looked at her feet, kicking the sand on the desert floor. "He gave me a gun?"

Trevor grunted. "That's of as much consequence for a bank robber as you taking a fucking peppermint out of his candy dish."

She ignored him and continued, speaking as though she were off in space. "One of the first times we met, he gave me his sunglasses because I lost mine in the ocean. He gave me a back rub once. One night when I was sleeping over, I woke up from a nightmare and he stayed up with me until I could go back to sleep." She sighed and squeezed her eyes shut and covered her face. Trevor knew the fucking feeling. Her little retrospective stirred up some of his own fine memories of Michael putting him first. Making him feel like someone had his back for once. But he wasn't going to let this chick delude herself or him into believing that Michael was a changed man. That his gooey center held anything but selfish need.

Trevor pulled out his phone and held it out to her. "Call him," he told her. She glanced from behind her palms at the phone with a look of confusion.

"What?"

"If you miss him so much, fucking call him. When's the last time you talked to him, anyway?" She averted her eyes. "Thought so," he said. He stepped closer to her, still clutching the phone. "If you don't call him, you _forget_ him. 'Else there's no point in talking about it." She looked like a deer in the headlights now, gulping while she looked between Trevor and the phone. She tapped her foot erratically and huffed out a bunch of consecutive sighs, all the while staring at Trevor with a look that was just _crying_ for mercy. He ignored it. "It's settled, then. You can have the bed while you're here."

He turned away from her and strolled up to his porch, stopping short of the stairs. He looked back at her. Her face told of some kind of resignation or acceptance, though it was still oozing sorrow. _Good. We're getting somewhere._ She just looked at him like that for a moment before she began the short trek to follow at his heels. Head down. Beat down. Acceptance.

...

Michael spent the next couple of days after his little therapy session constantly ringing Trevor and trying to make a plan. He didn't want to go in without letting Gretchen know what he wanted. To bring her back to his place and let her live her life as normally as possible until he could take care of all their problems for them. And to do whatever penance she saw fit for making her decisions for her. Of course, he saw the contradiction there. He was still making her decisions for her.

 Trevor took ages to actually pick up the phone. Michael didn't want to think about why he might be avoiding his calls, but he was relieved to finally get the fuck on the phone.

 _"Y'ello?"_ Trevor answered in his noxious sing-song.

"Why the fuck haven't you been picking up the phone?" Michael barked at him as he stuffed things into his overnight bag on the bed.

_"Easy, Pork Chop."_

"'Ay, naw! Fuck you! You haven't answered a single one of my goddamn phone calls! I haven't gotten a single fuckin' bulletin about how she's doing, if she's okay? And you expect me to sit on my fuckin' hands?" There was silence on the other end. "Hello? Earth to fuckin' Trevor! You didn't pass out on me did ya?"

 _"Michael?"_ came a woman's voice.

"Gretchen," he said with a sigh. He was embarrassed all of a sudden. He hadn't wanted for her to see that side of him. Or hear it, as the case may be. "Are you okay?"

 _"What do you mean 'am I okay?' You shipped me off to the desert without even **asking** me how I felt about it, Michael. Do you **think**_ _I'm okay?"_

"Hey, I _wanted_ to talk to you about it, but there was no time!"

_"Where are you right now?"_

Michael sighed, bracing himself for what was to come. "I'm at home, Gretch."

_"Ah. You're at home, huh? Well, from the sound of things, you haven't gotten a bullet to the back of your head and I'm guessing that nobody's thrown a live grenade through your window, either..."  
_

"Baby, listen to me-" he began as he paced the room.

 _"What was the **one** thing_ _I asked you for_ , _Michael? One fucking thing!"_ Her voice had become shaky and shrill with emotion, though she was plainly trying to control the volume of her voice. _"I asked for you to talk to me. Be straight with me. That was it."_

"I know!" Michael said, his own anger rising.

_"So why did I have to find out that I was leaving the city indefinitely from Trevor after he broke into my house!"_

"I didn't fuckin' tell him to break into your house!"

_"Did you send me out here to get rid of me?"_

Michael felt his stomach sink. He breathed heavily and shakily through his nose, doing everything he could to avoid her hearing him. "What's Trevor been sayin' to you, Gretch?" It was barely a few seconds later that he heard it. The whimpering on the other end of the line. It was so quiet, all breath, hardly any voice but he could hear it. He knew what that sound was. She was crying. He sighed. He felt like he truly could have murdered Trevor just then, but he knew just as well that if it was Trevor, he had no doubt fucked it big style. "Baby, I was callin' 'cause I was wrong. I shouldn't have reacted like this. I want you to come back. Stay with me. I'll sort it all out."

She made a sound on the other end. He couldn't tell if it was a sob or a laugh or both. _"Too late for that, Michael."_

"No it's not," he said firmly. "I made a mistake and I wanna fix it. I can be down there in three hours. I'll bring you back."

_"No. I don't want that."_

"Then at least let me come and explain. You got the wrong idea, sweetheart," he sighed. "Let me come and explain and I can bring you home."

 _"I said no,"_ she practically shouted at him. Before he could interject, she said one last thing. _"I'm going to ask you for one more thing. And I want you to listen to me this time."_ He listened to her voice breaking, not knowing what the hell he was supposed to say to her while she was ripping his guts out. _"Whatever you do...Don't get yourself killed, okay? Just stay alive. Don't get killed."_

"Gretch..." he said before the utter silence from the other end registered. He looked at the phone's display and saw that the call had ended. He wanted to break something. To scream. To destroy everything around him. He settled for a loud, crude utterance, no, declaration of "Fuck!" before he chucked his overnight back from the bed to the wall across the room.

...

Gretchen shoved the bedroom door open and walked to where a hungover Trevor lay on the sofa. She dropped his phone on his chest, earning an indignant groan from him. She sat down in front of him on the floor and pulled her knees up to her chest and wiped the last of her tears on her sleeve. It would be false to say that she hadn't been expecting the call. Michael had been calling incessantly the last two days. She begged Trevor not to answer even though it was driving him bat shit and he had to leave his phone on in case his "enterprise" needed his immediate attention. He finally acquiesced to his own irritation after the fortieth incoming call from Michael even though she flailed her arms and shook her head at him fervently.

They were strange bedfellows, even Gretchen could see through the insanity to that irrefutable truth. Something had changed after Trevor told her what Michael did. After she confirmed it to the best of her ability with the world wide web, there had been some kind of shift. She felt like Trevor was her only kin in this special misery. She wanted Michael but she also wanted him to walk off a cliff. Everything that Trevor had said made sense to her now. The way Michael had apologized to her that last time they saw one another and then orchestrated her escape (or was it a kidnapping?) from the city. How it seemed like he wanted her out of his hair because why else would he have sent her away?

Her time with Trevor was uneasy at first. Well, the first night was uneasy. But they quickly adapted to one another as though they were divergent species that went through a couple of millennia of evolution in eighteen hours and met one another half way. And before long, she was watching him drink too much at the inn that he loved so much and dragging his inebriated ass through the door a few hours later, practically dancing him to the couch. When he dropped onto it like a sack of potatoes, she stared down at him angrily and blew some hair out of her face. Through her panting, she managed to huff at him "Ya know, I'm like, a foot shorter than you and you definitely outweigh me by at least a hundred pounds. So maybe next time, have some consideration and just fucking pass out in the car!"

He grasped for her as she walked away, catching her by the leg. When he spoke, he sounded like a child. "Hey, hey, hey! That's no way for you to behave this early on," he slur-whispered. "Come back and stroke my head 'til sleep." She broke away from him in one motion and stumbled into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her and refusing to open the door until nine hours had passed. They made amends the next day as she fed him shot after shot of pickle juice until he felt better.

That very night, though, after they'd each had had more than they needed and they lay on the floor not wanting to let the other pass out for their loneliness, was when Trevor put a gigantic stain on the very thing that she'd been trying to ignore. She'd ignored it by following him around and making sure that he fell asleep on his side and finally drinking with him when he wouldn't shut his stupid face about it. And that  _thing..._ was the Michael problem. She had been sure every day that he would find a way to make it right. That he would show up and take her home or at least bring her a few more changes of clothes for fuck sake. The Sandy Shores laundromat was one of the skitchiest in all of San Andreas, she was sure of it. But days kept passing and he kept  _not_ showing up.

It started out innocently enough, at least as innocent as it got with Trevor Philips. "What's the weirdest thing he's ever asked you to do in bed?" She dodged the question for twenty minutes before it escalated in a way that no sane person could have anticipated. "He ain't coming for you, ya know? You're like a man without country. 'Cept you're woman without fuckhead incubus that made you think he'd leave you as he found you." She cried quietly as she watched Trevor lose consciousness and then she crawled to the bedroom and cried until her head hurt. After that, she didn't want to hear from Michael. She didn't know what to say to him.

Now, as she sat at Trevor's feet having just ended one of the most agonizing conversations that she'd ever had relative to its duration, she felt even emptier than before he'd called. Trevor looked down his nose at her as he nursed a beer. "I'm guessing that didn't go the way you wanted." He shifted and closed his eyes. "That's alright. You're welcome to stay here as long as you like. But don't be surprised when he comes grovelin.'"

"I told him not to."

"He probably will anyway."

Gretchen narrowed her eyes at him. "Why the hell are you now saying the exact opposite of what you've been saying in all this time we've spent together, Trevor?" He simply rolled his eyes in response. "No, don't do that. You're the one that told me what a dirt bag he was and that he put me out here to forget about me. And now you're saying that's not it?" She could hear the accusation in her own tone.

Trevor held the bottle up to his head, seemingly enjoying the cool condensation. He cleared his throat. "I dunno. I've been thinking about what you said that first night. About how he did those things that made you feel good and I remembered that Mikey ain't quite smart enough to do that on purpose just so he could sack you off when you started causing him problems."

Gretchen rose to her feet. "What the fuck does that mean?" she spat at him. "I'm getting sick of your shit, Philips." And she was. Between him breaking her down and leaving her alone to cry when he was on a bender, she had begun to feel ten times lonelier than she had since she first started treatment all those years ago. If she wanted to feel like shit, she could do it in her own home, with air conditioning and laundry on-site. And now he was trying to make her second guess herself? Fuck that. "And _he_ caused _me_ the problems. Not the other way around."

Trevor held his arms out defensively, clearly not pleased by the sudden increase in decibels. "Hey, calm down, missy. I didn't say he wasn't a lying sack of shit. And you're wrong about not causing him problems. If he liked you for more than your body and the odd lively conversation that you contribute, then I'd say you threw a pretty serious wrench in his plans to live the rest of his life being sad and hating himself."

Gretchen flashed back to the day that he came over to her house in cold sweats, shaking like a leaf and going on about how he would have been happy being miserable had she not come along. Her faith in his honesty was helped along by the wicked strong meds that she'd shared with him. "Right," she said quietly. There was no way that she could deny that part of her that still longed for Michael. That ached for him. And it was that ache that got her thinking about her next move.

Trevor's phone made a quick and loud chiming sound, one that sent him into a fit of miserable groans and grimaces before he picked it up and looked at it. He moved his lips as he read silently. After a moment he looked at Gretchen. "I've been added to the visitor's list of inmate Damien Enwright at Bolingbroke." Gretchen inadvertently gasped and snatched the phone, sitting next to him, reading the text. "I'm guessing that message was intended for you. Glad I could be of use as your answering service."

"You took my phone away, remember?"

"So nobody tracks you. It's a safety measure."

Gretchen ignored him and read the text. She'd written to her dad only four days earlier, requesting an audience with him. She hadn't expected for him to respond at all, much less like this. It would be the first time she'd seen him in years. And she could only hope now that seeing him wouldn't make her want to run off and find the first available needle as it had all those years before. But she knew that she needed to talk to him.

Gretchen turned to Trevor. "Take me to Bolingbroke tomorrow?"

Trevor shot her a surprised look. "Why so soon?"

"I came here to get rid of my daddy issues, 'member? That was my assignment," she snarled.

Trevor snorted. "As you wish, sweet cheeks." He leaned his head back and was snoring in a matter of minutes. Gretchen stepped outside, into the muggy, overcast Sandy Shores morning. She inhaled the first clean air that she'd smelled since she got here. She closed her eyes and, for once, let herself think about Michael. She'd been cruel to him in her imagination, shoving him out of it forcefully at the slightest hint of his memory only to have him reappear a short time later. And, in this moment, that anger that she'd felt toward him in the preceding days wasn't so potent, so stinging. Maybe, if this meeting with her dad went the way it was supposed to, she could make all of this right. She could make the longing stop. And she could get her ass home before the force of Trevor Philips' personality absorbed her and nullified her ego. She took one more deep breath.

_Alright, Enwright. Time to ova up and keep the world from collapsing around the lot of us._

 

 


	17. Chapter 17

"I don't want to go," Gretchen groused. She leaned her head back in the passenger seat of the little hatchback sedan driven by her mother. The interstate was bustling today. Traffic hadn't thinned out since they left home forty minutes ago. They should have been sixty miles further down the road by now. Ilse was tapping her perfectly manicured baby pink fingernails on the steering wheel. Gretchen knew that visits to the prison always made her mother nervous but at thirteen, she couldn't see past her own nose enough to consider someone else's discomfort.

"I'm sorry, duckling but we must," she said in her thick, Dutch accent. She had tried for years to thin it out but it still governed her speech. Men found it irresistible even though she would have given anything to sound like she came from the valley. "We haven't been to see Dami in months and months and when he doesn't get to see his girl, I get the mean phone calls and letters and I just can't this month, little duck!" Gretchen didn't miss the note of emotion in her mom's voice. Another thing that she wasn't so great at concealing was the growing chink in her mental armor.

"I'm sorry, mama," Gretchen said quietly. She didn't want to start a fight, either. Not on the freeway. Ilse took a deep breath and placed her hand on Gretchen's leg, giving it a thoughtful little squeeze. Gretchen looked up at her. Her mother was so classy when they left the house. Never a hair out of place. When they got home it was all sweatpants and under-eye bags, but whenever they went out into the world, she went all out to ensure that she looked like a million bucks. Gretchen envied her her flaxen hair and long legs, though she had gotten most of her own features from her mother.

Ilse smiled at Gretchen and took a breath, shaking her nerviness loose. Gretchen returned the smile and looked ahead. They rode through the stop and go traffic in silence for a while before Ilse spoke again. "Are you excited to see your papa, duckling? You've got a lot to tell him." Gretchen looked through the side of her eye to her mother.

"Like what? It's only been a few months. Everything's still boring as ever."

Ilse chuckled through closed lips. "But you're a woman now, gekkie!"

Gretchen's shoulders dropped, as did her smile. She turned to her mother. "Mama, no. Please, please, _please_ don't tell him that!"

"It's nothing to be sad for! Dami will want to know how his little flower has grown!"

Gretchen felt bile rise in her throat. The day had been going so normal. Ilse hadn't brought up her period all morning. What was so great about waking up with blood in your panties, huh? One and a half stupid menstrual cycles happen and all of a sudden, it's all the woman would talk about. "But I don't need daddy to know, mama. That's why I have you!" she barked with far more venom than she intended.

She looked at Ilse again and saw that her face had fallen into a frown. Then she quickly tried to cover it up with a flickering poker face and blinked back tears. She tried to speak but plainly didn't know what to say, so she just let out some kind of whimpering noise. The traffic stopped again.

"I'm sorry I yelled, mama," Gretchen said sheepishly.

Ilse waved the apology away dismissively. "It's fine, little duck."

"No," drawled Gretchen in her whiny preteen manner, grabbing her mother's forearm. "I didn't mean it." She unbuckled her seat belt and crawled over to kiss her mother on the cheek. Ilse smiled a warm, gracious smile and stroked Gretchen's hair. Gretchen smiled at her own power to diffuse her mother's rising emotionality and nuzzled her mom's temple with her nose.

"Buckle up again before the traffic goes." Gretchen quickly obliged her mother and not a moment to soon as they were moving again in under a minute. Ilse inhaled sharply. "So am I going to tell him or are you?"

Gretchen gasped. "What!"

Ilse didn't hold her composure together for long before she broke into a giggle. "I won't tell if you don't want."

"Thank you."

"But you know, duckling, you should talk to your father."

"That's what I'm going to do, isn't it?" she shrugged, having reverted right back into sarcastic teen mode.

"No, gekkie, I mean _really_ talk to him. There will be times when there's things that he can help you with that I can't."

"Like what?" Gretchen scoffed.

"I don't know, boys?"

Gretchen guffawed. "What can he tell me that _you_ can't? You have guys falling at your feet. It's gross."

"I'm not talking about guys that can't put sentences together when they see your thighs, Gretchen," she scolded, inciting Gretchen to pull a face. "I'm talking about real guys. Ones that matter."

 _Oh, yeah,_ Gretchen thought to herself. _Guys that get caught by hick rent-a-cops in smelly old port towns bringing illegal turtle eggs and_ _powders into the country._

"I like to keep it light, mama."

"You do now. But someday, you'll need his help."

Gretchen didn't have any more snark slugs in her chamber, so she simply leaned against the window and watched the power lines and petrol stations whiz by. Her very own promenade for her trip to the pen. To see her fucking father.

...

"Gretchy girl!" called Trevor from the other side of the bathroom door. They were at the last stop before Bolingbroke. She'd made him stop twice even though it wasn't a long trek from his trailer. First to do jumping jacks because she couldn't force her muscles to relax. And then this gas station. "Get the fuck out here!"

"Just a minute!" she barked shrilly. She turned back into the mirror and raked her fingers through her hair. She hadn't remembered to throw a comb in her backpack before they left L.S. She heard Trevor growl on the other side of the door before she heard the thumping, growing progressively louder and then there was metal clanking on the floor. The lock to the bathroom door had skidded across the cement. "What the hell, Trevor!" she yelled at his hulking frame, back lit by the blinding desert sun. He stalked over to where she stood at the sink.

"Do you even _want_ to do this? If I get you back in that truck, are you going to fake the fucking fits or something?"

Gretchen looked in the mirror again. "I'm not stalling."

Trevor folded his arms and leaned against the sink. "Your words not mine," he taunted. Gretchen kept raking her fingers through her hair and wiping at invisible spots on her face while her breaths came out, quiet and craggy. She felt Trevor grab her arm and swivel her to face him. He pointed a finger in her face. "If you're having second thoughts about this little outing, you better tell me now because I am _not_ sitting in a hot car jerking off for an hour while you pace around an air conditioned _lobby,_ little girl. I mean, why are you even going?"

Gretchen looked up at him. "I'm doing the..." she gestured wildly and emptily with her hands. "The thing with the daddy issues. You were right," she said, pointing at him with fake enthusiasm. "I'm a sick woman with man problems because my dad didn't hug me 'cause he was in jail." She ignored the scoff that she received in return. "And I'm going to take my dad to task for that and then I can go and live my life."

"You're so full of shit, Gretchen."

Of fucking course she was full of shit. She wasn't going to tell him what she was really going to the prison for. He'd gone soft on her. She couldn't trust him not to fuck it up. He would have made a fine ally under different circumstances but he'd done a one-eighty. Gretchen sniffed as she worked the last of her snarls out of her hair. She looked at Trevor in the mirror. "You don't have to stay in your truck while I'm in there. I can get a cab when I'm done."

Trevor snorted. "Naw," he crooned with faux-weariness. "I'll enjoy the alone time. I've been, uh...extra gentlemanly since you commandeered my house."

"You brought me to your house," she replied through a wry smile, which he returned.

"Sure, but you've cut into my self-punishment time quite a bit."

"I'm sorry for committing such an egregious human rights violation. And thank you for not committing one of your own by whipping your dick out in front of me," she said as she walked past him and out the now-busted door.

"Are you calling my dick a human rights violation?"

...

No amount of preening and Trevor's assurances that she looked fine, that she didn't look like she'd been in a meth trailer for the past several days, could squelch Gretchen's fears that she looked like greasy, sleep-deprived human garbage. She didn't want her father to see her like that. That would be in a way that would make him question whether or not she had been on the stuff again. Because his eyes were the most accusatory on planet earth and she had most certainly gone to see him when she was messed up. And the last time she had seen him, she was fairly new to being clean and she definitely had that new-normie pallor to her at the time. It lingered on a person's face for the first couple of years. Unless they found religion before that. Not exactly the prettiest thing in the Western world.

So once she made the short, dusty journey through five layers of reinforced walls and took her shoes off and went through a metal detector and surrendered her ID to the prison personnel, she couldn't help but wish that it wasn't too late to turn around. But visiting hours would be over in just a little over an hour and she only got an hour. That's all you got in max, even if the prisoner you were meant to see was housed in gen pop. She walked into the stony, sterile room with lighting so bad that it made that truck stop bathroom look like an outdoor ampitheater by comparison and took a seat in a bucket chair, like they had at airport gates but more creaky.

Damien wandered in a short minute later, looking very much how she saw him last time she was there, save for more gray hairs in his thick, black ponytail and in his scruffy black beard. He shuffled from the guard to the chair on his side of the glass and sat down. His huge, brown eyes more more sunken than she remembered, though it wasn't for lack of girth. He'd gotten fatter, too. He reached for the phone mounted on the side wall, but Gretchen just stared for a moment. It was when he raised his eyebrows, that she took the phone in her hands. It was greasy with the clammy hand print of the person who'd last used it.

"Hi, pop," she croaked into the receiver.

Damien stared at her through those hollow eye-holes of his with an unreadable expression. After a moment of silence, he spoke, too. "Hi, Gretchy." His voice was low, baritone. Just like it'd always been.

Gretchen's eyes flitted to the detached, young prison guard in the corner. Ex-military, no doubt. She noticed those things now. Noticed how he looked so much like her father had in his own photos from his time in the service. She looked back at Damien. "Thanks for seeing me." He blinked hard at her. "I'm sorry it's been so long." Something mocking flickered in his eyes, now. A new item in his short catalog of empty expressions. "It's been busy down south," she said, suddenly feeling even more weak and stupid. "I've been working a lot."

"Working so hard that you can't make it up to see your old man once a month?" he accused in his Appalachian drawl. Gretchen winced and he rolled his eyes, looking around the cinder block cavern. Murmurs from other visitors could be heard echoing off those walls. "Can't say I blame you. It was one thing for you to come up when you were a kid. Adulthood has a way of washing out the excitement of a prison visit, I imagine." He looked at her and gave her a smile that was laced with something strange. Warmth? No. Couldn't be. Her father had been in here for years. "Ya know, you could have waited another five years, seven months and twenty-two days," he said with an almost cruel diction. "Oh...Sorry, twenty three days, now," he said glancing at the caged-in wall clock behind her. "My bid here would be up by then and I could have treated you to a stack of pancakes at some flophouse roadside diner."

Gretchen's meekness and guilt stewed hard and fast for about thirty seconds before it evaporated into anger. Trevor's voice was in her head, suddenly. It was telling her to do what she'd told him she was going to do when she confronted her father. Though, that wasn't actually her motive for coming here. It was only a front. She surrendered to the anger, immediately. "You don't get to do that," she spat at him.

Damien narrowed his eyes. "What, you don't like pancakes anymore? They used to be your favorite..."

"You don't get to make me feel shitty for not coming to see you. You weren't around when I needed you. You don't get shaming rights. Mama used those all up before she died."

Damien widened his eyes. Not in a surprised way, but in a _look at the mouth on this one_ kind of way. He looked down at his belly and sighed. "I suppose you're right, button. I wasn't there for when you let your life circle the drain..."

"You weren't there when I stopped the drain, either..."

"I figured once you stopped mailing me your medallions that you'd fallen back into it..." Gretchen scoffed. "But I can't hoist you over my shoulder and carry you off to some detox facility in the canyon from in here. Plus, my cigar box was too full to fit any more of your little trophies in there."

"Do they have you on new meds or something? I don't remember you throwing so many stones last time I was here."

He looked up at her again and planted his elbows on the table. "I had goddamn Lithium toxicity last time you were here, buttercup. Wasn't all here, ya know." He sniffed at her and lowered his voice, glancing at the stone-still guard out of his periphery. "I've got about sixty thousand dollars in an account abroad. Talk to your uncle Wendell and he can get it to you. It was comin' your way, anyhow. Get yourself into one of those nice funny farms in a palm forest and you can clean yourself up." Gretchen guffawed again, without meaning to. He was totally serious.

"I don't need to go into treatment again, daddy. I've been clean seven years in March."

Damien dropped his chin and looked at her from underneath his prominent brow and scratched his beard. "Why do you look like you've been sleeping on top of an anthill, then?"

Gretchen swallowed hard. "It's a long story, dad. But it has nothing to do with drugs." She sighed and avoided his eyes. "I am in trouble, though," she whispered.

He straightened his back and side-eyed her. "What kinda trouble you in that ain't drug-related, kiddo?"

Gretchen realized now that she didn't really know where to begin. "I need information...I guess? Advice?"

"What kind of advice?"

Gretchen leaned in closer and looked at the guard again. He was still staring at the wall. "On how to be someone else."

Damien's face fell into a tired scowl. "Jesus, sugar, I really wish you'd have come to me when you were a kid with this. Could'a filled your head with a lot of empty drivel about how you can be whatever you want to be..."

"No, dad," she said, cutting him off firmly. "I need credentials. A new identity that won't look weird on a background check."

He widened his eyes at her. "What kind of shit did you get yourself into, kiddo?" he hissed at her. He shifted in his chair and glared at her. "Look, if you're in trouble with the law, take that money I'm offerin' you and get yourself a lawyer, ya hear? A good one. Or head somewhere with no extradition treaty to the U.S. You speak Dutch. You could get by fine in one of them African countries..."

"I'm not in trouble with the law. Yet," she whispered back. He gave her a befuddled look.

"Who'd you piss off, buttercup?"

Gretchen glanced at the guard one more time. She cupped her mouth over her hand and whispered into the receiver. "Merryweather." Damien's eyes went blank, his face sheet white. He began coughing. Gretchen was alarmed. The guard walked up behind him.

"Inmate?" she heard the guard say. Damien waved him away and the guard reluctantly returned to his post. The coughing fit tapered off after a minute. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and leaned in again. She saw him gulp and wipe some newly-formed sweat on his brow. He contemplated what she said for a minute, staring at the table top in front of him. She could see the wheels turning behind his eyes.

"Hot damn, I wish to hell you'd told me you were in trouble with one of those fuckin' street gangs up there, little one," he said chuckling emptily and shaking his head. He paused and looked up at her. "There's one guy that I know," he said, lowering his voice. "Real professional, discreet. He's got them computer smarts," he said wiggling his fingers in a dismissive way. "And he helped design a lot of the government mainframe they use these days. Now, he's over in Paleto Bay far as I know. I ran with him a little and we parted on good terms. Drop my name to him and you should be able to get into his fold pretty easy." He glanced at something invisible behind Gretchen and she followed his eyes to nothing, paying no mind to the fact that the guard behind him was the most immediate threat to their clandestine little arrangement. "He goes by the name 'Woodchuck.' I know that sounds stupid, but this guy's the real deal."

Gretchen nodded at him attentively. "How do I contact him?"

Damien stared at her for a minute. Like he was taking her in as best he could. He shook his head as though he were shaking a thought away. "I'm gonna give you his address. And I need you to commit it to memory best you can and then get out of here fast and write it down so you don't forget, ya hear?"

Gretchen nodded, ignoring the fact that he was speaking to her like a child now. "Okay."

Damien's face softened and he shook his head at her again. "Good lord, little one. You look just like your mother, you know?"

Gretchen looked into his face for a good while. She never liked to admit it to herself, but she really did miss him. Even though he'd been in prison for over half her life, she always came out of there wishing... "You can buy me a stack of pancakes when you get out, daddy," she said quietly, blinking back tears.

He smiled at that, though it was peppered with the kind of stoicism that came with hard time."It's a date. Listen good now. The Woodchuck lives at 6749 Pyrite Avenue. It's in an old store front in Paleto Bay." He waited for her to repeat it back to him

He made his hands into bunny ears and pressed them against the glass. She did the same, letting a solitary tear fall down her cheek. Just like they did when she was a kid. That's how they knew it was time.

"Run along now, little one."

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lurvelies. I hope that this chapter is good for you. I felt good about most of it and I hope that it doesn't disappoint!

Michael felt his tenderness for Gretchen shrink as he drove through the desert toward Sandy Shores. But it wasn't dissipating in a way that would have been helpful to him. It wasn't becoming minimized so much as it was being replaced by something else. It was equally as problematic and it was keeping him awake. He tried to honor her wishes and stay away but it was all of two days of sleeplessness and pacing and resisting the urge to take _just one more_ Alprazolam before he decided _fuck it._ Who in the goddamn motherfuck did she think she was? Working her way into his jellied fuckin' heart hole and then jumping ship as soon as she was miffed at him? Fuck that. He wasn't going to be a silent partner in her possible destruction at the hands of their paramilitary hunters. And she was going to fucking talk to him and look at him even if she didn't want to keep seeing him in a Biblical sense.

He opened his AC vents all the way and let the cool air blow on his face while he sped down the interstate, weaving in and out of the sparse traffic. It was dark already, the last pale light of dusk holding fast on the horizon. He felt like the only thing keeping him from veering off the road was the occasional set of tail lights. He was tired as fuck, but not only did he know that he wouldn't be able to sleep without the hollow aid of prescription drugs and hard liquor but he didn't fucking want to sleep. Not 'til he got to talk to her.

He blinked hard against the floaters that were beginning to emerge in his vision while he kept an idle eye out for speed traps. Trevor had reverted back to not answering his phone. Fuck knew what he might be doing. He didn't give a shit, though. He knew that if Trevor got a wild hair up his ass to drag her somewhere else that by now she would stand her ground. Which made him feel a little ashamed because that was his fault that she was so weary. Or he thought she was. His exhaustion was making the scenario playing out in his head feel like a parallel reality that he was living vicariously through shame and guilt. He set the cruise control once traffic thinned out even more to alleviate the ache in his calf.

Finally, he reached the thriving metropolis of Sandy Shores and navigated the desolate streets, which looked largely the same, until he came to Trevor's trailer. Trevor's junker was parked haphazardly in front of the fence. He tried to see in the window from the road to see if their were signs of wakefulness inside but he couldn't see anything with that rickety awning in the way. 

"Trevor! Gretchen!" he called as he hopped up the steps to the deck. He banged on the hinky, bent door. Trevor answered the door with droopy eyes and a hostile look on his face. He looked past Michael and then wordlessly stepped aside to let him in. "Where is she?" Michael asked, checking around the tiny tinder box.

"Gretchen?"

Michael turned to him and rolled his eyes. "Yes, Gretchen. Who the fuck else?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Pork Chop. Step the hell off, it was an innocent question."

"Sorry," Michael replied absently. "So where's she at?"

Michael could smell the beer coming off of Trevor and, where it would normally repulse him, now it was alluring. As if he could read his mind, Trevor handed him a beer from the fridge. Michael cracked it and took a slug.

"Your guess is as good as mine, friend," Trevor said wearily.

Michael almost choked on the beer. "What do you mean, Trevor?" he asked him slowly.

Trevor offered no verbal explanation, but simply handed Michael a piece of paper with some loopy chicken scrawl across it.

_Trevor,_

_Thanks for putting me up, but I'm not staying here until I become your common law wife. I might have found a way to make this go away. You'll just have to trust me on this. And if I fuck it up, well...it can't be worse than all of us looking over our shoulders until the reaper picks off the last of MW's board of directors. Thanks again. Please be safe. Remember to drink a cup of water with every booze. I'll see you soon._

_-G_

_P.S. Please look after Michael while I'm away. I need for him to be okay._

Michael dropped the hand that the letter was in and his shoulders went slack. "What the hell, Trevor? I told you to keep an eye on her!"

Trevor snarled at him. "Yeah, well you didn't tell me you wanted me to chain her to the fuckin' bed, Mikey! She took off this morning. She was acting weird since she went to see her old man the other day."

Michael squinted at Trevor. He was suddenly making no sense. "What do you mean? Her father? She went to visit him?"

"Yeah, the old fuck's locked up in Bolingbroke. I drove her over there yesterday. I asked her how it went and she didn't say nothin.' She was practically mute for the rest of the night. Even after I dumped ice water on her."

Michael ignored the impulse to ask Trevor why he had poured ice water on her. He collapsed onto the couch and looked at the letter again. "Trevor? What do you think she meant when she said she was gonna make this go away?"

Trevor met his gaze slowly. "If I fuckin' knew _that,_ Mikey, I'd be helping her. Christ knows I can't wait for things to go back to normal around here."

Any other time, Michael would have scoffed at what was _normal_ for Trevor, but right now, he was at a loss for what to do. "Jesus, T. What the fuck do we do now?"

"I knew you'd come back groveling to her. I told her so. That's probably why she left," Trevor said, ignoring Michael's anguish. He leaned against the counter flicking crumbs onto the floor.  Michael groaned and collapsed against the back of the couch. "Shit, Mikey," Trevor said, suddenly alert. "You're in rare form tonight. I hope you weren't _drunk driving."_

Michael pulled the pills out of his pocket and waved them at Trevor. Sleep was quickly threatening to overtake him. Trevor walked over and took the pills from him and looked them over. "Oh, shit, Mikey!" he chuckled. "You're partyin' like a twelve year old from the suburbs."

"Yeah, fuck you, too."

 "Welp, you're sure as shit not going anywhere tonight. Why don't you sleep it off and we'll go chase that skirt tomorrow."

Michael didn't have any time to protest before he faded into a hard-won sleep on that lumpy, spuzzy couch.

...

Michael was stirred from his sleep by the clumsy sound of the trailer door being pushed shut.

He sniffed and shot up. "T?" he called, blinking away the bleariness of sleep.

"Shh," he heard from the dark. He looked up to see a figure illuminated by the green of the neon light over the fridge. It was a smallish figure in a dress.

"Gretchen?" he asked the dark.

He watched the figure walk to his side and sit down on the couch. He saw her face then. It was bathed in that green light, wearing a calm expression. She pressed her finger to his lips.

"Baby, where the hell were you?" he asked her, pulling her hand from his mouth.

"I might have found a way to make this go away," she said, smiling faintly.

"What are you saying?"

"You'll just have to trust me on this." She stroked his head and tucked her legs under her. She looked so far away, but she looked into him with a penetrating gaze. Her face fell suddenly. "What's the matter? Please talk to me..."

Michael laughed emptily. "What the hell do you mean _what's the matter?_ You fuckin' took off-"

She cut him off with a kiss. And dammit if he didn't respond immediately. He pushed his mouth into her hungrily as she crawled into his lap to straddle him. He clutched her middle while she ground into him. He was instantly hard, feeling the warmth coming off of her. She unbuttoned his shirt with one hand and pressed his hand to her breast with the other, inhaling deeply. She pushed him back against the couch and pulled her dress down. It was that pink one. The one she wore the first night they were together. She wasn't wearing a bra underneath. She let him stroke her tits, locking eyes with him while she undid his pants with one hand.

She let him in real slow this time. He sighed as he felt her slide down his length. She rode him slowly for a moment before she picked up the pace. She looked at him with a  look in her eye that he'd seen before. "Oh, fuck," she sighed as she leaned back.

"Baby," he exhaled as he pressed his lips into her tits. He wrapped his arms around her waist and flipped her onto her back and picked up where they'd left off, going hard while he pressed his face into hers. "Don't you ever fucking run off on me again," he huffed. Something about him scolding her sent her over the edge. She bit her lip and exhaled with a breathy groan. He felt her tighten around him as he unexpectedly started coming himself. He cursed and grunted and grimaced while he kept his eyes on her the way she liked him to do while he came, hard as it was to do. He was relishing it now.

And then they were a panting bundle on the couch, their limbs tangled, still clutching each other with rigid hands. Gretchen relaxed her grip after a few minutes and stroked his head again. She looked almost remorseful. "Oh, Michael," she said, her cracking voice steeped in sadness.

"Hey, shh. It's okay. It's okay," he said, stroking her arm. She shook her head and closed her eyes tight, trying to fight tears away. He kissed her clammy face. "Baby, stop, it's alright." He ran his hand through her hair and along the side of her face and kept staring at her, talking softly to her, trying to make her stop crying. Until he felt something warm on his hand. Warm and sticky. He looked and saw it. Saw it before he smelled it. Blood. His stomach sank. He pushed her hair aside and looked. In the dim, green glow his eyes finally let him see where she was bleeding from. A hole in the side of her head. A hole where her ear should have been. He looked at her face again. She wasn't crying now, though. Her eyes were completely vacant as she looked past him at the ceiling.

"They had to reattach it," she said coolly. "I was out for a few days." Michael shuddered as he looked between her lost eyes and the blood on his fingers. She spoke once more. "I need for Michael to be okay."

Michael felt himself falling and then being pulled upward into some invisible abyss before he opened his eyes and felt his heart pounding ferociously in his chest. He heard the familiar guttural scream coming from his chest as he sat up and looked around the room, remembering slowly where he was. In Trevor's trailer. Alone. It was still dark outside but he could see the dawn readying itself at the horizon through the window. He felt cold all of a sudden. The illusion of having her there left a coldness against his body. He stood and walked out of the trailer and onto the deck.

He quickly found a cigarette in his breast pocket and lit up, looking out toward the dawn. He quietly cursed sleep and dreams and Gretchen, too. It wasn't fair. He knew that he'd messed up, but that didn't mean she should have him on the hook forever. As he leaned against the rail, watching the sun creep up, he heard Trevor coughing and clearing his throat inside. He didn't want for Trevor to be awake, but he didn't want to wait anymore to try and find her and make sure that all her appendages were still attached. He felt foolish for letting himself think that had been real. Rapid-eye movement or no, you should recognize when someone is eerily reciting soundbites from past conversations. The only thing he had to be grateful for in that moment was that he hadn't, as far as he could tell, had what would have been his first wet dream in three decades or so.

...

Gretchen looked from the fast food wrapper (the only paper she'd found in Trevor's truck after she'd left the prison) with the Woodchuck's address on it to the decrepit storefront in front of her. _6749 Pyrite Ave._ She'd circled the block five times, nervously trying to recall if Damian had given her any additional details on the place. She didn't want to spook the guy. The street in Paleto Bay was largely empty. She wondered if perhaps that had to do with how ripe the air was. It was broiling out there and she thought that what she was smelling might have been the poultry factory in town. A smell like blood and cold and, for some reason, axle grease.

She got out of her car and walked to the building. The glass on the storefront was made of that reflective shit, so she couldn't see inside. She walked to the door, wondering suddenly if it was customary to knock on a commercial door or if she should just try to enter. She tapped on the glass tentatively. "Hello?" she called, glancing behind her to make sure that the street was still empty. When a sheriff car drove by then, she folded her arms and turned away from the street, desperate not to let anyone see her. She cleared her throat and tried again when she couldn't hear the engine anymore. "I, er...Hello?"

She startled when the door suddenly opened just a crack, stepping back to survey the face that had answered. A small, balding, pale man about her dad's age poked his head out. He wore huge glasses that made his pupils look comically dilated, which gave her another start. "I don't want any magazines or watchtowers," he said, looking her up and down before pulling the door shut.

"No!" she called to the glass. "Damian Enwright sent me, told me to get in touch with you. I think?" The door opened again, more slowly. This little rodent of a man seemed to be performing a strange kabuki dance with the door, sticking his head out with the same visible trepidation with which he'd opened it.

"Dami Enwright? I haven't heard that name spoken in years."

Gretchen relaxed a little bit at his vocal recognition of her father. She mused silently that, by the looks of things, he probably hadn't heard _anyone's_ name uttered in years. She had worried about what would have happened if he hadn't remembered or if he pretended not to. She couldn't exactly clarify her position by shouting about his and her father's illegal business association from twenty years ago. One thing was certain and that was that his squirrelly disposition made her nervous. "He said to...ya know-"

"I don't," he barked at her. Gretchen immediately went on the defensive and scoffed at his rudeness. How off-putting.

"He told me you might be able to give me some information. About how to, er...bypass certain..." she began waving her hand, trying to conjure an effective euphemism. She saw now that her defensiveness wasn't serving her well. She sighed and dropped her hand and leaned in closer. "I need I.D. Are you the Woodchuck?" she asked him barely above a whisper.

He looked her up and down with his magnified eyes. "Who's asking?"

"Oh," Gretchen said. "My name's...Wait," she began, cutting herself off. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Well, when strange young women come knocking at my door in the middle of the afternoon, I should say I'd like for them to identify themselves."

Gretchen's stomach sank with embarrassment at the brash comment. She cleared her throat. "I'm Gretchen. Enwright. I'm Dami's daughter."

His eyes widened as he guffawed. "Wow. Of course. Erm..." He looked around her outside and when he was satisfied that the coast was clear, he waved her in. She squeezed into the narrow berth that he allowed with the door and stepped into the dark store. She looked around to see that he had plastered newsprint on the store front window, which seemed kind of superfluous given that you couldn't see dick from the outside even if you squinted hard. "Right this way," he said. He limped toward a backroom. This whole place looked weirdly familiar. And smelled familiar. Like hot circuits, dust, and stale coffee. When they got into the small room, filled to the ceiling with various gadgets and modems, he gestured to a seat as he sat in his own.

"I'm sorry I didn't call," Gretchen told him as she sat. "He didn't give me any other information, just your address." She looked up to see him staring at her with an odd look that she couldn't quite place. "Something the matter?"

He shot up and limped over to a banker's box in the corner of the room. He wordlessly rummaged through it for a minute before he stood again, walking back toward her. He held a photograph in his hand. He looked between the photo and her, clucking and shaking his head. "Ya know, I thought there was something vaguely familiar about you but I couldn't quite place it..."

"Sorry?" Gretchen croaked quietly, suddenly feeling a little ill at ease.

"You know, you really are a ringer for Ilse. I couldn't tell from this photograph. You were only a kid. Your hair was blonder and you had buck teeth. I told Dami, I said 'Dami, there's no way I can keep tabs on your daughter without current photographs.'"

Gretchen stirred in her seat. "I'm...I don't understand..." she said, her stomach turning a little bit.

He noticed the worry in her face and laughed which, as intended, put her at ease. "I suppose I should clue you in," he said taking his seat. He sighed. "After your father got thrown in the clink, he asked me to make sure that you weren't coming up on any watch lists, you know, because of his legal troubles?" Gretchen narrowed her eyes but didn't interrupt. "It was fairly easy at first but then you kind of dropped off the face of the planet and I didn't know if you had any aliases. Of course, soon as you turned twenty, I found you in the police blotter when you were going by the name _Willa Best..."_

Gretchen grimaced at the name. The stupid name that her stupid boyfriend had told her to give to the police if she were ever stopped. It matched her stupid fake I.D. And now here she was. Looking for another, albeit more convincing, fake. Full circle.

Woodchuck continued, "I can't believe they printed your fake name when you had plausible deniability." He leaned back in his chair, still yammering as though he were reliving a fond memory of his own. A fond memory that, for her, held nothing more than the sting of past mistakes. "Of course, your boyfriend, Graham Lockhart, street name Beelzebub, did not have that since he was driving the car _registered to him_ with seventy grams of tar taped all around the undercarriage."

Gretchen sighed. "It was a mistake," she said to herself, more than to him.

"But they didn't process you, so I couldn't get an updated picture."

"You wouldn't have recognized me anyway," she said. "I didn't exactly look human back in those days."

He smiled graciously at her. "I suppose not." He leaned forward, steadying himself on his computer desk. "You know, Gretchen, I'm a little disappointed that you're here. I mean, it's nice to see that you didn't drop off the face of the earth but I hope you're not...backsliding."

Gretchen shifted in her seat at his weird, sudden paternal streak that contrasted so steeply with the suspicion that she'd been greeted with. She preferred that. "Do you think you can help me or not?"

"I can help you get into rehab, though, social services aren't really my forte."

"I don't need rehab," she said warily, remembering her recent conversation with her father. "My trouble isn't with drugs and it's not just _my_ trouble. I have friends that are in trouble, too. So I need to find a way get us out of it without raising _anyone's_ hackles."

Woodchuck narrowed his eyes at her warily and pursed his lips. "What kinda trouble we talkin'?"

Gretchen thought about it for a minute. She knew that she was breaking major codes. If Lester was here, he'd lob his cane at her. But she was a babe in some pretty deep fucking woods. "I got involved with some people that Merryweather wants dead."

Woodchuck guffawed again. "Merryweather?" he barked firmly. "The private, _multi-billion dollar_ mercenary company?"

"The very same," Gretchen said casually, trying to regain her train of thought. "And we started to take care of it, but then I came up on their radar, even though all they had to go by was the fact that I went to the same N.A. meetings as one of theirs and the tattoo on my back."

Woodchuck shook his head solemnly. "That's probably all they needed. A monied group of assholes like that."

"So now, the only thing we have to worry about is a thing in itself. That _thing_ is this outside consultant called Wallace Daschel. And I found out this week that now he's a major shareholder _and_ he won a seat on the board." Gretchen recalled everything she could from the deliberately minimized news items that she'd combed through while at Trevor's. Public information was such a fucking paradox. "He's really powerful and now he has a bunch more reasons to have us murdered. More than a six-figure stipend."

The man exhaled sharply and studied the floor. Gretchen didn't take his eye-contact avoidance as a good sign. He raked his hands through his thin hair. "What about your associates? Who are these guys? I mean, if they were able to spook Merryweather, surely they're pros, right?"

"Yeah, they're pros." Gretchen snickered emptily and raised a digit for each one she described. "You've got your hermit, a guy my age that's smart but still wet behind the ears, a psychotic meth-addict, and their fearless leader."

Woodchuck shrugged and took a sip of coffee that was sitting on his desk. He was clearly rapt by the story, which Gretchen put down to him having less-than-enough human contact. Or maybe it was a terrific fucking story. She couldn't tell. "A fearless leader is a fearless leader. Why can't he take the reigns on this?"

Gretchen thought about Michael then. About how sorely she missed him and how much she wanted to make all this right even though it would mean that they didn't really have anything in common anymore and how if Trevor was right the _first_ time, that it would mean that he would fade out of her life. "He's addicted to guilt and..." Words were failing her now. "And when I came along, I started giving him a steady fix of it... 'Cause _you_ might not have recognized me right away. But some people, when they see me...They still see blonde hair and buck teeth. Because I've worked for a  _long time_ to make people think that I'm still _that_ girl and not some nameless smack-addicted shell of a person. To make _myself_ think that. And it's worked on a lot of people. And I think that one of those people is the fearless leader."

Woodchuck had stopped mid-sip and was now staring at her intently with something that looked like fear in his eyes. He set his mug down and peered at her. "Gretchen...Kiddo, this is _heavy_ shit. It's not petty crime or even merely felonious...It could be a death sentence."

Gretchen shook her head at him. "I need to restore order. I need access to Daschel. If they...my _associates..._ if they get too close to him..." Gretchen's brows knitted at the thought. "I made things more complicated than they needed to be by getting involved. But I can't dog out now."

"Your father's not going to be happy about this."

"If I can pull this off without getting killed, then happiness will follow."

He sighed at her. "I hope you know what you're doing."

Gretchen laughed sourly. "Not even a little bit. But I can't make it worse, either."

He smiled at her with an air of understanding. He reached behind his computer monitor and produced a camera that was connected by some complicated circuitry to a computer tower. "Don't smile," he said, aiming the camera at her. It flashed and she winced and made a noise from the back of her throat, trying to blink away the orbs of light dancing behind her eyes now.

When her vision was clear, she saw that Woodchuck was already hard at work, tapping at his keyboard. She looked at the monitor and saw that nothing about it was recognizable. Jumbles of number sequences filled the screen, a language that he was clearly familiar with. She saw her picture appear on the screen next to a flickering sequence of what looked like human faces. Finally, with more tapping, the computer ferreted out a group of women with features vaguely similar to Gretchen's.

"Who are they?"

Woodchuck laughed. "Well, my dear, not everyone is lucky to see so many of their dopplegangers, but meet yours. A group of women roughly your age with roughly the same features. We'll find one that fits you well enough and you can work your story around her." Gretchen watched over his shoulder as he opened their profiles, scanning their details for something plausible. They narrowed it down to two women. Women that didn't speak Romanche or have a lazy eye or anything that might be a major give away.

"Lorna Saco, age twenty four, worked at a bikini bar in West Vinewood. Attended Palamino Community College for two years before withdrawing, no priors...Oh...no. She had some work done." Gretchen reflexively crossed her arms to cover her chest, feeling very exposed all of a sudden. He pulled up the other photo. Gretchen looked at the woman. It was spooky. But for the woman's darker hair, it was like looking in a mirror. The woman in the picture was much scowlier than herself. "Elise Fitzroy, age thirty, worked as a massage therapist and a self-proclaimed _holistic healer_ before she dropped off the grid completely two years ago."

"Is she dead?" Gretchen asked, suddenly rethinking her approach to this whole thing.

"Well, she hasn't been _declared_ dead, but it's possible." He must have noticed how she'd gone silent because he swiveled around to look at her and his face grew concerned. "But it's more likely that she joined a commune out in the desert somewhere. That happens more than people think. People get dissatisfied with their lives and wind up in cults sharing a husband with fifteen other people. It's life sometimes." Gretchen smiled kindly at him, feeling some relief that he had talked her into buying his version of events, even if he'd sort of hoodwinked her into it. "I think this is our girl, kiddo. The resemblance is pretty outstanding. What'dya say?"

Gretchen scrutinized the photo one more time and nodded. "Yeah, let's do it. I can call myself a holistic healer."

"Excellent. Now let's start workshopping your plan to get your guy," Woodchuck said turning to her.

She paused for a moment. "Um, before we do that, you didn't tell me how much you want for all this. We didn't talk about it."

He nodded as his face twisted into a contemplative scowl. "Call this one a gift."

"What?" she said incredulously. "But, I mean, what about hazard pay or something? Aren't you taking a risk?"

"Your risk is infinitely greater."

Gretchen looked around the room, very mystified as to why this man, who was running a criminal enterprise out of a cruddy old shop, was refusing to take payment. "Um...I'm sorry, I'm just a little confused. When you first laid eyes on me, you looked at me like I had flesh-eating disease and now you're helping me with all this stuff without taking anything for it? What's that about?"

He let a fond smile spread across his face. "When me and your dad were in business together, nobody on that boat really liked me all that much. It wasn't like it is today. Nobody like nerds back then. Especially smug ones that thought they were smarter than everyone else. That kind of thing got a scrawny guy like me in a lot of trouble." Gretchen sat down again. Woodchuck looked off in the distance. "Your father saved my skin more times than I can count. One time in particular, I was nearly beaten to death by one of the other crew members. Great big Swedish guy with 'roid rage. Hence the limp," he said gesturing to his leg. "Dami got in between me and that big sonofabitch and stopped him from murdering me. That's why I agreed to keep an eye on you. And that's why I'm helping you now."

"Oh," Gretchen said, barely above a whisper. He turned back to his computer and began jotting down some details from the screen into a notebook. Gretchen twiddled her thumbs for a moment, taking in what he'd told her. She stared at her feet. She really had no idea what the proper conduct for sitting in a dark, dusty room in a building that probably wasn't zoned for cutting and pasting a new identity together was. She was pleased, however, to realize that the strangeness of this encounter had given her a break from thinking about Michael for about two seconds.

She'd been thinking about him in the strangest ways, even when she wasn't picturing him in front of her or remembering all their time together. Sometimes, when she couldn't bear to think about him outright, she would have these strange thoughts. Thoughts that were impossible to make out. Like a Picasso painting rendered with nothing but firing synapses and an ache for that other person. That Michael. He made her feel like nobody else ever had. She really did start to feel like someone had scooped a part of her out when she saw that they couldn't be together then. And it fucking hurt. And now, in this dark, crowded mess of circuits and paranoia, it was giving her a headache. She took a deep breath and looked up at her strange companion, desperate to get her mind off of Michael again.

"Woodchuck?" she asked quietly.

"Hm?" he muttered in a semidetached fashion.

"Why are you called 'Woodchuck?'"

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's that for now. This story has taken on such a life of its own and I really feel like that is owed to all of you, especially those of you that comment and give me inspiration and motivation to keep going on what has become kind of a monster. Thanks again, all. You're amazing.


	19. Chapter 19

There was no time for false starts or second thoughts, Michael reasoned to himself. There was no time because Gretchen hadn't left any clue as to where she was headed. Franklin had been to her place, noting that the terra cotta pot that Trevor had broken on her terrace (a detail that Michael was grateful for) was still in pieces on the floor and that the kitchen light was left on. The shower and all the sinks were bone dry and many of her plants had gone wilty. Her drawers were full of clothes, still. They surmised that she hadn't been there from Lester's scathing character sketch of her fastidiousness. She wouldn't have come back without cleaning up the pot and watering the plants.

Michael wasn't terribly fond of the prospect of entering the prison. In fact, that Gretchen had forced his hand in doing so just gave him another thing to hold against her. Even so, it had to be done. It was their only lead and Lester had hacked Bolingbroke's system to get Michael onto Damien Enwright's visitor list before Michael had even bothered to ask. The whole thing had been done in short order and now here Michael stood at the circulation desk, handing over his personal effects and his ID, flashing back to when he'd been processed for his own stint in the pen.

"This one of your _stupidest_ ideas yet, Porkchop," Trevor had snickered at him from the porch as Michael took his leave of the trailer. "You don't meet the _parents_ without getting having the girlfriend there as a buffer. That's just common sense!"

Michael squeezed his hands into fists. The last thing he needed was Trevor's sardonic brand of advice before his trip to see this phantom of a man who was half responsible for the existence of the woman that he was now chasing. "I ain't going to the fucking pen to ask for this guy's blessing, T. I'm going to find out what she told him while she was there."

"What if she told him that she was running off to the fuckin' Caiman's with some foxy young firebrand with his name tattooed on his torso, Mikey?" Trevor lilted mockingly. He shifted on his feet. "Ya think you can handle that kind of rejection right now?" Michael opted not to dignify that with a response before he took off for the prison.

He found himself relieved when he saw that the Bolingbroke visitor's room held no resemblance to the one back up North. It was even more depressing some how, but at least he was on the right side of the glass this time. He took a seat in the hard plastic chair and heard the familiar symphony of buzzing and heavy springs and pins being renegotiated as an unseen steel door opened and shut with a loud _thump._ A moment later, a man walked into view in an orange jumpsuit, followed closely by a mean-mugging guard with a four-foot shoulder span.

The inmate, a tired-looking old man with a black ponytail and thick salt-and-pepper beard stared at Michael blankly for a moment before heeding the guards admonition that he sit. When he was in front of him, Michael saw the man's deep brown eyes rimmed by orbs swollen by years of disappointment and failure. He looked at him the way that Michael imagined he was looking back. Like they were both wondering if the person before them was, in fact, the person that was _supposed_ to be there. He couldn't see a hint of resemblance between this guy and Gretchen.

The man surprised Michael after a second by lifting the receiver off the cradle and holding it to his ear, never taking his eyes off of Michael, who quickly followed suit and picked up the phone.

"I don't remember hiring another lawyer," the man said.

"Mr. Enwright-"

"'Cause let me tell you, it took a long time for me to come to peace with bein' in this place, and it was a hard-won peace. I'd appreciate it if you'd respect that."

"I'm not a lawyer," Michael replied.

The man narrowed his eyes at Michael. "Well, I don't remember names but I remember faces and yours is not entirely familiar, son. Did I do somethin' to piss you off while I was outside?"

Michael sighed. "No. I'm here about your daughter."

Damien's face fell into a worried scowl. He leaned closer to the glass. "My daughter? Gretchen? What's happened to her?"

"Nothing," Michael answered quickly, hoping to assuage the obvious fear that he'd accidentally created. "I mean, nothing that I'm aware of. I'm trying to find her."

"Why?" Damien asked curtly. His voice was deceptively cutting for how quiet he was talking.

"She took off without telling myself and my associate where she was headed. I need to find her and make sure she's okay."

Damien crossed one arm over the other and stared daggers at Michael. "If you're one of those jumped up assholes hunting my daughter, lemme tell you somethin'. You got the wrong girl. My buttercup didn't do a goddamn thing-"

"I'm not with Merryweather," Michael hissed into the phone.

A confused look crossed the old man's face before he leaned back in his chair and surveyed Michael once more. "Then what are you doing here...Agent?" Michael stared back, confused. "Officer? CEO?"

"I'm none of those things. I'm a friend of Gretchen's. I know she's in trouble and I came to see what you two discussed while she was here. I can keep her safe if I can find her."

Damien snickered at Michael then. Michael shot back in his seat, surprised. "What kind of amateur do you take me for, stranger? You think I'm gonna give her whereabouts to some dummied-up Didier Sachs wearin' sonofabitch whom I've _never_ laid eyes on in my life?"

Michael sighed. He'd wondered if Gretchen had mentioned himself and the others by name at all. He thought something like this might happen. He reached into his waistband and pulled out a piece of paper that he'd managed to get by security. He glanced at the guard and, when he was satisfied that prying eyes weren't on him, clandestinely held it up to the glass where the guard wouldn't be able to see.

"She's been staying out here with a friend of mine for safe-keeping. But she took off the other night. She left this with him."

Damien leaned in and studied the note. After a moment he looked up at Michael. "You're the Michael she mentioned in this?" he asked quietly, nodding at the note.

"The one and only," Michael said, stuffing the note back into his waistband.

"She does dot her 'i's like that. Has done since she was a kid," Damien said, staring solemnly at the counter top in front of him. Probably remembering the exceedingly rare letters that he'd received in that very script. "And she never signs her whole name."

"Look, I know you don't know me. I wouldn't trust me either if I was you. But your daughter's in trouble and it's mostly my fault..."

"Then why's she so keen on _your_ safety, friend?" Damien asked, the curtness returning to his speech. In that moment, he could kind of see the resemblance. Gretchen got her looks from her mother, but her bluntness came from her father. He remembered the night of their second job. When she'd yelled at him on the sidewalk for giving her a gun. Those flashes of her robust attitude that sometimes peeked out from behind her otherwise mild demeanor.

"Because she's got a savior complex. Surely, you've figured that out by now."

Damien leaned back in his chair and nodded, giving Michael a proper once-over with his eyes. "I suppose that's true. But you don't trust her to save you. Not if you're here," he tried.

Michael pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes. "She's a smart woman. But she doesn't have the guile for this kinda thing." 

Damien seemed to consider this for a moment before leaning forward again. "Is the guard paying attention?"

Michael glanced at the seemingly oblivious guard. "Doesn't look that way."

"I gave her the address of an old, er...coworker of mine. But I ain't giving _you_ his address. If you are who you say you are, you can reach him by phone. I'll give you one of his burner numbers and _he_ can find out if you're on the level where my daughter is concerned."

"Fair enough," answered Michael.

Damien recited the number to Michael, who locked it away in the same place in his mind that he'd put countless safe combinations.

"If you're the Michael from that note, maybe you can tell me how my daughter got mixed up with you and why you're so concerned with seeing her out of this. I'm guessing you're in the life," Damien accused. _Takes one to know one._

Michael wanted to find a delicate way to explain. It seemed as though Gretchen hadn't intimated any details about their little posse to her father. "Gretchen came to me through a mutual friend to help us out with a little project. I let it go too far. I should have pulled her out sooner."

Damien crinkled his nose at Michael and stared at him queerly. "In my day, we didn't bend over backwards to solder a weak link shut."

"This is different. Gretchen is...Gretchen..." he began, tripping over his words. "She and I became close over the last few months." He averted his eyes for a moment, waiting for Damien to say something. He heard him sigh on the other end and looked up.

 _"Close,_ huh?" Damien said, rolling his eyes. He ticked his tongue, still looking Michael over.

Michael ignored the old man's attempt to ferret out information by making him squirm. "I mean it when I say I want her safe."

The look that Damien gave Michael just then was a gut-puncher. If he was more superstitious, he could have sworn that the old man was looking into his soul just then.

"Make it happen, then. _Michael."_

_..._

It had all been too easy. Getting the proper credentials, finding Daschel's unpublished haunts, discerning that a) he had enough money to want the services of some crunchy granola girl with a suitcase full of crunchy granola fare like crystals and shit and that b) he was immersed enough in the L.S. lifestyle-guru fetish to want those things at his disposal. Woodchuck helped her posture herself as the go-to holistic healer and somehow by means that were unknown to her, had managed to plant her name in the personal service pool. She didn't want to know what kind of mad genius it took to make this come to fruition so quickly. All that she'd had to do was to skim some books and articles about holistic healing practices and patch together a persona based on all the jargon that she'd learned from them. That and show up at the home of the person who wanted her and her friends dead.

Hyper-rich people were such hypocrites, thought Gretchen. They would jump on the dick of anyone touting their abilities as a zen master and yet they did nothing to create peace and stability for the rest of the world. They hermetically sealed themselves inside their enormous homes with their footmen and their false sense of security and spirituality. And, ironically, it appeared that the shareholders of this corporation, that made war with everyone who didn't fall in line with their core values (money and control), were the greatest offenders in this bizarre disparity.

Luckily for Gretchen, it was this sad state of affairs that brought her to Wallace Dachell's home, where she went through three different personal assistants _after_ an intrusive search of herself and belongings by a security detail, each of a different station, to reach him. The man was smaller than his newspaper photos made him appear. He was only a little younger than her father as far as he could tell, with white hair and cloudy blue eyes and some strange, uncanny veneer about his person that made him appear to be kind and approachable but that was totally transparent. Something that gave him an air of menace that was impossible for Gretchen to ignore. "Call me Wally," he insisted before he led her to a private mahogany office with a massage table set up in the center. There were pictures of Daschel with every single puppet master in San Andreas, nay, the West Coast, shaking hands and gripping shoulders at banquet tables and in exquisite gardens. This was the man that she was looking for, alright.

Forty five minutes after they first laid eyes on each other, Wallace was face-down on the massage table while ambient music played over his impressive sound system. Gretchen had surrounded his body with geodes and set about sticking him with needles that she then lit on fire, explaining to him that it hurt because he was too tense and that he wasn't committing himself to letting go. It was always best to blame the patient for a lack of progress, she'd learned. "Imagine a white light around yourself," she said, trying to stave off any suspicion about her qualifications and knowledge (which amounted to nil and none, respectively). Of course, saying it made her roll her eyes at herself. When he went quiet again, she peppered the ambiance of the room with little spiels about chakras and energy fields, basically reciting word for word what she had read in those books.

"Elise," Wallace said after she'd pulled the last of the needles out of his back. "I think that you and I have a rapport. A real good thing." Gretchen's stomach tensed, first at the mention of yet another of her fake names and then at what might have been the prelude to a sexual overture. She was alone with this power-hungry weirdo, after all. "The way you read my body is remarkable. Far better than any of the other holistic handmaidens that I've come across." Gretchen tried to ignore the absurdity of that statement. "I'd like to do this with some regularity. Three times per week to start. If you think that's appropriate." He sat on the edge of the table while Gretchen gathered her supplies and he put his shirt back on.

"That won't be a problem Mr. Daschell."

She startled when he clutched her wrist. She looked up into his face, which was brimming with intensity. "Please, Elise. I asked for you to call me Wally."

Okay, that was weird. Typically, she could tell if someone was hitting on her or at least trying to use sex to pull a power play on her. Men weren't terribly difficult to read where that was concerned. But there was something woven into his words and into that look that he was giving her that told her that  _this_ wasn't  _that._ "Right. Wally," she said through a gulp. 

"I have plenty of money. Plenty of material goods. Plenty of power," he told her softly. Something about the way that he was speaking to her, with such frankness and intent, was making her want to crawl out of her skin. She didn't understand how someone could get into his position by being so candid with strangers. "But I am spiritually bereft," he continued, dusting something invisible off his shirt. "My work requires a certain amount of, shall we say, _callousness_ that often leaves me feeling drained."

Gretchen almost wanted to laugh. His _callousness,_ i.e. his ability to send armed hounds after people that interfered with his ever-growing business prospects was giving him a sad. Go fucking figure. She clutched her suitcase to her chest and stared him in the eye, forcing a warm smile instead in lieu of belly-laughing in his face. "I think I can help," she said simply.

"Good girl," he said. Her stomach turned again. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, drifting off somewhere unseen to her. "You can see yourself out, I trust?"

"Sure," she answered quickly, having a hard time peeling her eyes from his creepily serene face. He opened his eyes and stared straight forward, staring at the wall. When Gretchen saw that he wasn't going to acknowledge her again, she briskly walked out of the room.

...

After Gretchen had confirmed her next appointment with Daschel via his receptionist and after her heart had stopped hammering in her chest, she absent-mindedly drove to the city center, eventually finding herself at Legion Square. She took a seat at the edge of the square and watched people walking by. She stared up at the skyscrapers, all alight and shiny with the late afternoon sun. She drummed her fingers on the concrete and let her thoughts flow.

What in the fuck had she been thinking? What was her end game in all of this? She hadn't realized it until a half an hour ago, but she was completely winging it. She'd figured that she would get in, gain the guys trust, and find a way to gank the drives and files after she'd placed him into a stupor with some guided meditation or something. She hadn't banked on him being so...Eccentric. And apparently devoted to whatever hackneyed spiritual practice she pulled out of her hat. This was going to be difficult, she now saw. She could kick herself for being so naive. But then again, what the hell else was she going to do? She was fairly certain that she'd driven Michael to the brink of insanity (albeit accidentally), Trevor wasn't taking  _any_ of it seriously, and she hadn't spoken to Franklin in ages. It was all so disorganized. She needed to try  _something._

Her thought-train was derailed by the sudden sound of a phone ringing. But not her phone or even a cell phone for that matter. It took her a moment to place where it was coming from before she saw it on the second scan of her surroundings. The payphone. What the hell was an operational payphone doing there? Surely she must have noticed it before. She'd probably thought that it was a part of the outlandish sculpture scape that was Legion Square.

She turned her attention back onto the sidewalk, hollowly pondering her next move. Maybe she should go back to Woodchuck and try and workshop some more ideas with him. She didn't exactly have it in her to kill the guy and even if she had, she wouldn't stand a chance against his crack team of armed-to-the-teeth automatons. _Ring. Ring._ Better yet, maybe she could find a way to get him somewhere private and without a detail. She could find an empty retail space and tell him that she wanted to try some cutting-edge therapeutic technique to restore his sense of morality, but that all of the necessary equipment was at her office. _Ring. Ring._

Gretchen looked around the sidewalk and noticed that nobody was giving but a passing glance to the phone that was ringing. In her keyed-up state, the thing was staring to drive her a little batty. She could feel her eyelid twinging a bit now. She stood and walked to the phone. She lifted the receiver off of the cradle and pressed it to her ear.

"Don't hang up," she heard a stern, borderline-nasally voice say from the other end. A familiar one at that.

"Lester?" she said incredulously.

"You've been a naughty girl, Gretchen. You know you're putting us all at risk."

"How did you-"

"The lojack I put on your car a few months ago finally came back online late this morning."

"What the f-"

"I need for you to meet me at my place right now."

 _Click._ Gretchen stared down at the receiver for a moment before placing it back on the cradle and looking around the area suspiciously. When, how, and why had Lester lojacked her car? In spite of her trepidation, Gretchen found herself shuffling to her station wagon, pulling the door open and sitting for a moment with nary a thought in her head before she began the drive down to Murietta Heights.

That emptiness filled her mind all the way down to Murietta Heights, clear up until she got to Lester's street. What if this was a trap of some kind. Lester said he knew where she was since that morning. Did he tell the others that he'd found her? When she rounded the corner onto his street, she stopped well short of his house before she got out of the car. She looked down the sloping roadway, checking for signs of life, or at least of other cars. Of course, even if someone were there, the lojack would give her position away and they could probably use it to find her. Unless she found the device first.

Gretchen ducked down onto the pavement and gave the undercarriage of her car a quick sweep, checking for blinking lights or for anything that looked as though it might not belong. She crawled around the perimeter of her car until she reached the back. There, not quite plain as day, was a tiny transmitter box with a tiny blinking red light, sticking out from behind the wheel well of her rear tire.

She yanked it off with relative ease and stared at it, examining it for a moment. It was then that she became angry. It was a quick and undeniable anger. Who fucking cared if they had found her? What were they going to do? Her privacy, her dignity, her autonomy, all of it had already been yanked away from her in one respect or another. She got off of the ground and stomped toward Lester's house, ready to face whatever was waiting for her. When she got to the front door, she didn't look at the security camera. Instead, she stared straight ahead at the door until she heard a buzzing sound.

She pushed her way inside the house and walked into Lester's cave, finding him with his back facing her. She bit her tongue, waiting for him to turn around and look her in the eye. And he did, slowly, wheeling around to face her with a look of irritation in his eye that quickly dissipated when he saw whatever expression she was wearing. She held the transmitter up to him before tossing it at him violently. He flinched as it landed in his lap.

"What the _fuck,_ Lest?" She pointed at the transmitter. "Why did you _stick_ that on my car!"

He picked it up with a look of shock or confusion or something on his face before he met her eyes again. He obviously wasn't expecting for her to be so aggro. "I put it on there months ago just before all this started."

"Why?" she said in an exaggerated tone.

 "Because I didn't trust you," he shrugged with a stunning lack of hesitation. Gretchen let out an exasperated growl as she wrung her hands at him. He held his hands up defensively. "Hey, hey, hey. Just...Just calm down," he stammered.

Gretchen was pacing now. Between her anxiety about Daschel and her anger toward Lester, her body felt like it was boiling over with anger that she needed to purge. "You pulled me into your world of insanity and then _you_ have the gall to spy on me?"

Lester's mouth had obviously gone try as told by the way he was ferociously licking his lips. "Well, it's pretty plain _now, Gretchen,_ that this little measure was necessary," he yelled holding up the transmitter. "When I saw that you were in Daschel's neighborhood this morningstaking him out,  I almost had a fucking heart attack!"

Gretchen turned to Lester and stared at him inquisitively. "Staking him out?"

He shrugged at her again. "Yeah, that's what you were doing wasn't it?"

Gretchen stared for a moment before she let out a chuckle. It was quiet at first but it quickly reached new heights and she was laughing uncontrollably, leaning against the door jamb for support. When it finally subsided, she wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at Lester, who looked at her with a look of grim concern. When she finally found words, Gretchen explained, "I'm not staking him out. Jesus. I got into his house because he thinks I'm a practitioner of the _holistic arts_." She flicked more tears away from her cheeks. "He hired me to work for him, three times a week."

Lester sat in stunned silence, almost grimacing at the insanity of what she was telling him. "How did you get him to think that?"

Gretchen's smile fell. This part of the story was sketchy. She didn't know how Woodchuck had gotten Daschel's people to call her on the burner that he'd provided her with. She would have to give Lester the details that she _did_ know. "I got new I.D. Some lady that used to do holistic medicine before she disappeared a while back."

Lester's jaw dropped then. He rubbed his temple and stared at the floor. His expression was a bit vague. He spoke quietly. "You're telling me that you stole the identity of a missing woman so that you could infiltrate Daschel's inter-sanctum by feeding him foul-smelling teas and pretending to meditate with him?"

Gretchen searched her mind for a moment, looking for something to pick apart in the explanation that he had just parroted back to her. Finding nothing, she responded, "Yeah, I guess."

"And nobody on his security team suspected anything?"

"Well, I guess there's not way to tell, but I didn't get black-bagged when I rolled through the door."

"Where did you get this stuff?"

"I have a guy."

His eyes narrowed at her. "Tell me more about _your guy,_ Gretchen."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey dudes. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'm working on reuniting our lovebirds. I hope you can bear with me for just a little longer. <3


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friendlies! I started writing this thinking I would just do a little bit of writing and then I couldn't tear myself away for all the ideas that kept springing to mind, so here it is. If you early-birds see any glaring mistakes, do let me know and I'll fix them. I also realize that I've been spelling Daschell's name with both one and two 'l's and I'm sorry if that's confusing, but I gave him a stupid name that makes it hard to remember how to spell. I hope you guys enjoy this! This is a very Michael-heavy chapter. The reunion will most likely happen in the next chapter.

Michael scanned the quiet street in Paleto Bay for suspicious persons, though it wasn't lost on him that he was likely the only suspicious person in this town that was always sleepy unless he and the company that he kept were nearby. He stared at the dirty commercial building front, which was obscured by reflective film marred by years of neglect. There was something eerily familiar about this place.

This Woodchuck character hadn't put up _too_ much of a fight before he acquiesced to Michael's repeated requests to meet in person. It wasn't safe to discuss these matters over the phone, he reasoned. Besides that, Damien was correct when he'd subtly suggested that this guy wasn't going to crack over the phone. He was as squirrely as Michael had figured that he would be given his _occupation_.

 _"You don't sound like you're some kid that's still wet behind the ears and you don't sound like a psychopathic tweaker, so either you're a fellow hermit or the fearless leader. Are you fearless?"_ asked Woodchuck at the tail-end of their phone conversation.

"As much as I'd like to think so, I ain't so sure about that," said Michael, wondering how much Gretchen had told him.

Woodchuck had given him his home address as soon as he'd surmised that Michael was not masquerading as himself after having tortured Gretchen to death. Nor was he sore at the faceless man for helping her. The whole thing was more than a little bit surprising really. That the man would so easily let Michael into this fold where Lester would have quietly and carefully vetted him to an almost obscene extreme before he'd even talk to him.

_"Well, Mr. De Santa, on paper, you're a relatively clean specimen when ignoring the vulgarity of the wealth it must have taken to purchase that fancy mansion of yours."_

Michael felt his guts sink. "'Scuse me?"

_"Eighteenth century Spanish architecture fell out of favor a number of years ago, though, so clearly you have **some** modesty."_

"Are you looking the blueprints of my house right now?" Michael asked incredulously.

He heard the man guffaw. _"Hardly. Eyefind Maps is a handy tool."_

"I didn't give you my home address."

_"I had time to find you. Dami got a hold of me after you paid him that visit and gave me enough details about you for a baseline search."_

He had promptly hung up on Michael after giving him an idea of why he was so willing to meet him sight unseen. Now here he was pulling open the hinky door and looking around this dark lair, which reminded him very much of a more mature but equally depressing facsimile of Lester's place. When he took a seat in front of the nebbish, middle-aged computer nerd, he suddenly knew why this place was so familiar. Because there was one just like it in Los Santos, occupied by one Lester Crest.

The man and Michael stared at one another blankly for the first minute, each taking the other in. There must have been some anticipation on both ends, though only hours had elapsed between when Michael got him on the phone and now. The man's enormous, magnified eyes were eagerly taking in the sight before him as he sipped his coffee. He shook his head and ticked his tongue at Michael.

"Well, well, well. The fearless leader in the flesh. Gretchen didn't do you much of a kindness. You don't look like you have an ounce of guilt in your body."

Michael narrowed his eyes at the guy. "I dunno what she told you, but-"

"What she _told_ me, _Michael,"_ Woodchuck began, cutting him off, "is that the whole reason that she's throwing herself on this grenade is because she drove you crazy with guilt and that now you can't do your job." The accusation was both scathing and playful. Michael wasn't sure that he was terribly fond of this guy. And he didn't know if he liked that assessment on things. Sure, he felt guilty alright. And the last thing he'd said to Gretchen before he'd placed her in Trevor's custody was "sorry." But _crazy?_ It was then that Michael flashed on his weird, spontaneous visit to Dr. Argus and the benzos that had been going above and beyond the call of duty. Shit. Maybe he'd have to re-examine that when he had the time.

"I can tell you're enjoying this," Michael said flatly.

Woodchuck's face fell into a scowl. "On the contrary, Michael. I'm not happy about this situation at all. But my old buddy's kid came to me looking for help and I could hardly turn her away. She was going to do what she was going to do and there was nothing I could do to stop her. So, I used my best judgment," he said somberly before muttering quietly, "She is her father's daughter."

Michael leaned over and stared daggers at the man. "Well, maybe you can start by telling me just what your judgment was. And if you know where she is, I need for you to tell me now before she gets into a bad situation."

Woodchuck gulped down his coffee, clearly intimidated by Michael's harsh overture. He wiped the dribble off his mouth by moving his lips together vigorously and avoided Michael's gaze. "She's in the city, still. As far as I know."

"Where in the city?"

"That I couldn't tell you with any certainty. I got her a credit card and I've been monitoring the activity. Last time she used it was at a medical supply store in Morningwood, day before yesterday. I gave her a phone and told her to call me if any trouble arose, but I haven't heard a peep."

"What would she be doing there? At a medical supply store, I mean."

Woodchuck inhaled sharply before he dropped a bombshell on Michael. "She's been operating under the identity of a holistic health professional to gain access to Wallace Daschell. From the looks of things, she must have gotten in because she's been to the medical supply three times and she also used the card at a gas station in his neighborhood."

Michael's ears were ringing. This was her _fixing things,_ though the details were still sketchy. He pressed for more information. "How did she get a new identity?"

Woodchuck's face twitched as he swiveled nervously in his chair, meeting Michael's eyes for a quick, uncomfortable second before he shoved back and began pecking at his computer keyboard. Michael watched him gesture to the screen, taking it as his cue to look. When he saw the screen, it didn't register right away. Elise Fitzroy, age 30. He looked at the accompanying image, studying the features of the woman. She was stone-faced, even a bit harsh in her countenance. But she could have been Gretchen's sister, to be sure. It was eerie. And then he saw her. The real Gretchen in a thumbnail in the corner of the screen. This guy had rigged her up an identity, alright. Things were slowly, but surely (and agonizingly) coming into focus for Michael. Gretchen was in the field. Alone.

"Call her. Right now," Michael said sternly.

The hesitation on Woodchuck's part was brief, but palpable. It only took another glare from Michael to move him to action. He scooted in his chair to the wall, where he moved a clown painting to the side, reaching into the wall and extracting a cell phone. He stared at Michael while he dialed.

"Put it on speaker," Michael demanded.

After seven rings, the outgoing voicemail came over the speaker. _"Hello, you've reached Elise with Integrated Health Solutions of Los Santos. I'm sorry that I couldn't take your call. Please leave a message. If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911."_ Her voice was unmistakable, though she'd obviously adopted a mildly different cadence than what he was used to. More professional, perhaps.

"Hello, Elise," said Woodchuck, staring at Michael with a thinly-veiled look of fright. He was obviously scared that Michael would be short with him over Gretchen's failure to answer. "This is Charles Woody. I'm calling because I think that the supplements that you recommended are interacting with my blood pressure medication and I'd like some advice. Please call me back at your _earliest convenience,"_ he finished, punctuating the last syllables to convey emergency.

Michael leaned back and let out an exasperated sigh. "Do you have any idea where she's staying?"

Woodchuck shook his head somberly. "I told her to withhold some information from me in case someone came calling," he muttered, looking embarrassed just then. "But I'm about ninety nine percent certain that so far, she's accomplished what she set out to do. I think that she's at least close to getting into Daschell's fold."

It was then that a profound dread came over Michael. The buck stopped here, and now all he could do was wonder if she was already in Merryweather's sights. "Fuck," he spat. He looked up at Woodchuck as he stood. "If any more activity comes up on your radar, no matter how insignificant it seems, you let me know, ya got that?" he admonished before turning to the door. "I'm going back to L.S. I'll meet with one of my associates there. He'll be calling you to get everything you have on this. We oughta have another set of eyes on it so we can find her."

"Michael," he heard the man call behind him as he reached the doorway. He turned to face him. The man hesitated before he spoke, seemingly mining his mind for the proper words. "When Gretchen came to see me...She left me with the impression that you were...I dunno, special to her." Michael relaxed his rigid stance a bit, leaning on the door jamb with the heel of his hand.

"Did she?" Michael asked, fighting that boyish side of him that wanted to ask him what she'd said.

"I feel like she's doing this for you. More than for anyone else."

Michael pressed his mouth into a hard line and pondered that for a second. He hadn't really had time to think about her motives in doing this, but there was a part of him that suspected that Woodchuck was right. He'd said as much to her father before. About her savior complex. It went even further back, before she disappeared. Back to when she agreed to do this in the first place. First, it was for Lester. Because she couldn't stand the thought of him in jail. Because even though he was an absolute tit to her, she still felt responsible for him. And now? Well, he should have seen this coming.

That time they spent locked in his house together for two nights. Screwing and sleeping and doing little else, except for indulging in almost delirious honesty with one another. That was the time when she'd told him something that he hadn't paid much mind to then but that seemed so significant now. She was on her stomach, naked except for her glasses (which was enough to fulfill every librarian fantasy that he'd ever had for two lifetimes), propped up on her elbows while he lay on his side, stroking her sweaty back. She was tracing patterns in the sheets before she finally spoke, breaking the silence that they'd been enjoying for the past several minutes.

"Do you think it's possible to be scared for things that already happened? You know, the way we worry about things that haven't happened yet?"

Michael kissed her shoulder, sticky with sweat as he scooched closer to her. "What do you mean?" he asked into her hair. It smelled like sweat and citrus and something flowery. "Like regret?"

"No, not exactly..." she said.

"I know a lot about regret, baby," he said, the libidinous tenor in his voice not matching the somberness of the statement. When he heard what he'd said, the way it cut through the quiet in that room, he got nervous all of a sudden. "You're not regretting all of this are you?" he asked, hoping that she took it to mean all the sex and closeness and the  _them._

She looked over to him and her look told him that she did indeed take his meaning. "No," she said, shaking her head with a smile. "I'm thinking about stuff you've done. About how many times you could have died doing what you do, Michael," she said, the smile fading from her face. She looked down at her hands. "Sometimes I feel like it hasn't happened yet and when I think about it, I get this horrible feeling like...Like dread, I guess."

"You know, I could look at you all day, every day and never get tired of it?" He wasn't entirely trying to deflect her comment. He meant what he said. He was starting to get worked up again, looking at her. But he could also sense that she was trying to burst his bubble a little bit. She rolled over on her back and sighed, giving him a view of her tits which were still terrific even marked up with sheet imprints. "Hey," he said, snaking his arm across her torso. "I know I haven't been an angel, but I can't change the past, Gretch. Fuck knows I wish I could sometimes, but..."

"It's not in the past, Michael. _Merryweather_ is not in the past." He would have thought that she was angry at him if she hadn't started stroking his forearm, looking at him, pleading for him to answer.

He stroked her face in time with her touch. "It'll be over soon, baby."

Michael winced at the memory. At the realization that she had been trying to get him to reassure her. That if he had done so in a meaningful way, she might not be MIA right now. "If you talk to Damien again, tell him...Tell him I'll have her back before anything happens to her."

...

The drive back to L.S. was agonizingly slow. It was cruel how such a beautiful drive could feel so slow and monotonous and urgent all at once. When he finally reached the lip of the city four and a half hours after his meeting with that weirdo down in Paleto, Michael breathed a sigh of relief only to hit traffic on the freeway. It took another hour of stop and go traffic for him to reach Murietta Heights.

He wanted Lester in on this right away. Not only could he keep a pair of fresh eyes on this thing, but Michael wasn't feeling any kind of compulsion to trust the Woodchuck just now. He believed what he had told him. He believed that he was responsible for setting Gretchen up and that he probably didn't have any ulterior motives in doing so, but he wasn't perfectly sure if he was all in when it came to making sure that Gretchen would be okay. Lester on the other hand...Well, Lester owed Gretchen and Michael knew where Lester was at all times, so if he had to apply some extra, ahem, coercion tactics, he could.

When he finally pulled up to Lester's, the sun was dipping behind the mountains, casting that pretty, eerie orange glow all over everything. He jogged up the steps to the house and waited. And waited. He pressed the buzzer and tapped his foot. It was a full minute before he started beating at the door with an open palm a then a fist. Finally, he heard the door buzz open and he pushed inside.

Lester was in his office, pouring over something on his computer when Michael entered. "Lest, we need to talk."

Lester startled when he heard Michael, promptly flicking off his monitor and wheeling around to meet him. His face was flushed as he took a hit from his inhaler, laughing nervously.

"I interrupt somethin'?" Michael asked impatiently, holding his arms out.

"No, nothing," Lester said tersely.

"We all gotta jerk off sometimes, Lest, but I mean, our attentions are needed elsewhere."

Lester was hunched over, taking another pull off of his inhaler. "That's rich coming from the guy whose been _nailing_ our plant almost since she joined up with us," Lester barked. Michael laughed humorlessly. "Ya know, it's funny Michael, you're always the one that seems distracted anytime we try to get something done." Lester's voice was almost shrill with accusation.

"Alright, alright. Point taken. For fuck sake."

"You didn't tell me you were coming."

"No time for convenience. I just got done talking to this guy up north. Helped Gretchen get a fake I.D. and _now_ it appears that she's trying to get close to Daschell without our support." He sighed heavily as he took a seat on the bed, dragging his hand down his face. "This is a fuckin' disaster, Lest."

When he looked back up at Lester, he saw something playing over the man's features. Something like guilt. Normally, when Lester heard bad news, he wasn't exactly shy about having a hissy fit about it. So this was...Oh, fuck.

Michael stood from the bed. "What do you know, Lester?" Michael demanded. Lester shifted in his seat. Michael saw him mouth _fuck_ at the ceiling. "Lester," Michael sang out in a threatening tone.

"She was here yesterday," he said sheepishly.

"What?" Michael barked at him. "When were you gonna tell _me_ that?"

Lester wheeled over to his computer and flicked the monitor back on. When the screen adjusted, he saw that Lester hadn't been watching filth. Rather, he had been perusing biographical details on Elise Fitzroy, or whatever details Gretchen had forged in her short time impersonating the woman. "She took off when I started pressing her details about where she got this shit from, but not before I got a peek at the fake that she's been using," Lester said gesturing at the screen.

"Fuck!" Michael yelled, louder than he intended to. He started pacing. "So she's in the wind again!" He threw his hands in the air, defeated.

"Not exactly," Lester said. Michael looked down at the mischief on his friend's face.

"What?"

"I clued Grechen into the fact that I'd lojacked her car a few months back to see if she was going where she said she was going when she was meant to be out getting my prescriptions and things."

"What? Lester!"

Lester held his hands up defensively. "What can I say? I wanted her gone! It was before I'd discovered her uses!"

"Such a prick," Michael muttered.

"Anyway, I figured that once I told her, she'd find it and remove it and..." Lester began again, holding up a small black device with wires hanging off of it, "I was right. She threw it in my face, in fact. Luckily, before she got here, I gave a neighbor kid seventy bucks to fit another one on her car." He turned to his computer and pulled up a screen. A grid map of the city with a faint, but obvious blue dot that connoted her position, Michael figured.

"That her? In the canals neighborhood?"

"Yeah. She hasn't moved in about twelve hours."

"I need to go find her," Michael said, getting up.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down, cowboy," Lester warned. "She don't wanna see you. She told me so. If you corner her, she might bolt and we'll _really_ lose track of her."

Michael narrowed his eyes at Lester. "Just what did she say while she was here?"

"'Don't tell Michael I was here or I'll take your balls for a walk' were her exact words, I believe."

Michael looked at the screen again. At that stationary dot. It was the closest that he'd felt to her since he got to hear her voice last. In his dream. His fucked up, traumatizing dream that still gave him shivers when he thought about it. "You know, I met the guy that set her up with I.D."

Lester leaned forward, intrigued. "You _met_ him?"

"Yeah. Calls himself Woodchuck. Lives up in Paleto Bay. Lives kinda like..." Michael began, gesturing around the room. "Well, like you."

"Hmm. Gretchen wouldn't tell me a thing about this person. What was he like?"

"I just told you."

"Why've I never heard of him before?" Lester asked, though it seemed like he was asking it to the air.

"I dunno. He lives underground. You know something about that." Michael cleared his throat. "He had a pretty impressive set-up I guess. He had some kind of backdoor into the social security administration or something 'cause-"

"'Cause all her credentials were real. Enough to get her past Daschell's security detail."

Michael's heart galloped in his chest. "So it's true? She really is in already?" Michael asked. His voice sounded small to his own ears.

Lester looked up at him and nodded. "She didn't tell me a whole lot. Was worried I'd use it to get her into trouble with you, I suppose. But she's met with him already and he wants to make her a regular part of his repertoire by the sounds of it."

"Jesus," Michael said. "I can't waste anymore time. I need to get to her before-"

"Michael!" Lester yelled, capturing Michael's attention again. "I told you. If she sees you before you want her to, you run the risk of scaring her off. She thinks you're going to cut her off completely and blitz the place and get yourself killed. She told me so!"

"What the fuck would you have me do instead, Lest? Let her get found out on her own so they can torture her before they toss her in the ocean? No fuckin' way," he said stabbing his finger in Lester's direction.

"Not quite," Lester said tentatively, treading lightly so as to avoid another outburst. "It'd be better to ambush her on the way out of Daschell's house. If you get that close, she won't want to draw attention to you since she knows that you're one of their prized captures."

Michael started to calm down a little bit. He sat back down and let Lester know, non-verbally, that he had his attention.

"Since Wallace became a shareholder, his security team and influence have gone from manageable to, well, unmanageable. If we move to attack, there's going to be a big, bloody urban war and our girl knows it. And then _you_ had to go and stash her out in that sandbox." Michael began to protest but Lester held up a finger to silence him. "Gretchen's angry, Michael. But more than that, she's scared. And not just for herself. She doesn't know what kind of shit you've seen, so she's designed some horrible nightmare in her mind where you get shot so many times that there's nothing but your pulpy carcass left," he said, gesturing wildly around his head. "Just do as I say, and maybe she'll give you half a chance to put her fears to rest, okay?"

Michael was taken aback somewhat. He never thought that he'd see the day where Lester described Gretchen like a person instead of thorn in his side. But here he was, creating a subtle psychological portrait of her that...made sense, strangely.

"You think she'll be safe until I can catch her outside Daschell's?"

Lester relaxed a bit, seeing that his mental acrobatics had worked their magic. "She says she's working with him three days a week. I think she's due back there the day after tomorrow. If I see her making moves anywhere near that place, I'll let you know right away."

"Good," Michael said, hearing the relief in his own voice. He reached in his pocket and took out his phone, tossing it to Lester. "That's the Woodchuck's number. He's expecting a call from you to get all the particulars on the credit card she's using and the identity, too. Give him a call, keep an eye out, and call me the minute that anything comes up."

With that, Michael left the house. There was more blues and purples in the sky now. He drove off of that cramped little street, headed for the freeway. He wondered where she was then. If she was safe. If she was lonely. He sure as hell was. No matter who he was with anymore, if it wasn't her, he still felt like he was all by himself. But Lester was right. He didn't want to corner her and then have her split on him. That would just make everything worse. He needed to be patient for once. To have restraint. To quit being so goddamn impulsive. The way he _hadn't_ done since he flipped his lid and sent her away.

_I gotta try to make this right._

 


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Criminy, this only took me fifty million years. Yeesh. It did NOT go how I was expecting it to. After this, my plan is to try and wrap this mof up in four chapters. The next one will likely be long in my estimation, though that counts for very little these days when it comes to my fics. I hope that you like it. Without further adieu, the reunion chapter.

Gretchen hadn't planned on staying at the Daschell estate longer than it would take for her to ascertain where the incriminating files were so that she could make a plan to appropriate them. She didn't think that, at 8 am when she arrived per Wallace's instructions, that he would keep her there for hours. That he wouldn't nod off during their guided meditation. Nor would he keep his eyes closed, trying to harness the stillness that Gretchen had talked up all morning, the stuff that he craved. Instead, he began confessing things.

The morning had started out fairly normal, though her last encounter had left her a little bit gun shy. She tried to pretend that he didn't put her off. She reached into her bag of tricks that she's used all those years ago to make people believe that she was fine, that she wasn't using. Pan-Am smiles and emotional intelligence were the weapons that she wielded. And they seemed to work. Maybe too well. Because when Wallace was on his back, letting Gretchen pull his arm and knead the soft tissues at his rotator cuff, he dropped a bomb on her.

He had a dozy look on his face, but he was very present. She could tell from his shallow breathing, which she kept gently trying to correct. "I have 11,000 employees at my beck and call, but I cannot, for the life of me, find a handful of murderous thieves that are trying to pull our corporation down, Elise."

She was quiet at first. Luckily, he didn't seem to sense any trepidation as she walked around the other side of the massage table, watching his tranquil face as a hawk would. "I'm not sure I take your meaning," she said quietly. "I've never heard that expression before."

"It's not an expression. I'm being literal." Gretchen's stomach sank. The thought flickered across her mind that perhaps she was cornered but that he was biding his time. But then why would he have let her get so close? "Don Percival, our founder, he left the country after we were barred from operating domestically, but when some other shareholders expressed in interest in opening up a satellite operation stateside, ya know, something that wouldn't draw too much attention, he practically became a ghost."

"You think something happened to Mr. Percival?" Gretchen asked, trying to focus on maintaining steady pressure on his arm.

"No. I know he's out there somewhere, delegating his bottom-feeding public relations team, but he knows what, or rather _whom_ we are up against, and he's deliberately withholding that information. I can't understand why myself, but rumor has it that the criminals we're looking for did Don a favor and _that's_ why he isn't giving up their names. All we have are some fragmented facts about things that they're suspected of. Crimes, I mean. And we're trying to piece them together to get some names. But it's been quite fruitless so far," he sighed.

Gretchen searched her mind for what he could be talking about. The more he talked, it seemed, the more euphemistic he became. She remembered reading that Don Percival had left the country. And at the beginning of her dealings with Michael and company, Lester had mentioned that Percival had made out well after Devin Weston was killed and that had put them in his good graces. "Maybe Mr. Percival isn't worried about these people that you're talking about. Have they done anything lately to hurt your corporation?"

"No," he said, eyes still closed and serene. "But if we're going to start operating stateside again, our shareholders need to know that these people aren't waiting in the grass. They seem to have a keen interest in taking us down as long as we're working inside U.S. borders."

Gretchen had to stop herself from scoffing. She knew that wasn't true. But she also knew that Michael, Trevor, Franklin, and Lester had raised a lot of hell a couple of years back and that they made Merryweather look completely useless. Still, it didn't mean that they were on a personal crusade to take it down. The only people that had those designs refused to arm themselves. People more like Gretchen herself.

"That sounds like a lot for you to deal with," Gretchen said, switching gears. "I'm sure that you're putting your best foot forward in finding them."

Wallace opened one eye and looked at her. No, stared at her. Pierced her with his one open eye. Gretchen's gaze flitted between him and his arm as she placed it back on the table. "I knew that you were the right person for this job, Elise. I knew it the moment you walked through the door." _That says a lot about your self-preservation instincts._

"I'm pleased that you think so," she said, forcing a smile at him.

"You understand me. You understand what I'm up against. The choices that I must make," he said. Both his eyes were on her now. "I'll have to remember to thank you when I address the shareholders. After I eradicate these bastards. Them and their femme fatale."

...

Gretchen walked out off of Daschell's property after ten hours of fumbling through making him believe that she was doing him some good. And oh, how she fumbled. Fortunately, Daschell didn't seem to notice, instead blaming himself for the lessened efficacy of the stupid rituals that she guided him through. She was both hopeful and fearful that he would reveal more to her. Something that she could use. The one thing that she did gain from the experience, was that she remembered now why she was doing this. That there was a threat that needed to be dealt with. At the same time that that thought entered her mind, it struck her that she was thinking like Daschell now.

When she got to the other end of the huge wall that separated his untold acreage from the roadway, she leaned against it, suddenly weak. She knew that she was safe from security cameras now. She'd seen all the monitors several times, noting where the video surveillance of the perimeter ended. She leaned over and took as many deep breaths as she could while she stared at the sidewalk, trying to clear her mind. She was in way the fuck over her head. And yet she was at some kind of advantage. Either way, she didn't know what to do with it and now she was wondering if whether or not she'd done the right thing by going over everyone's heads. She'd made it so _far_ , though.

Her clothes felt too tight all of a sudden. She had a sudden desire to tug at them. She stood back up, still leaning against the wall with her forearm, and pulled her hair tie out, shaking her mane loose, hoping that it would make her feel less constricted. It only helped a little bit. She was starting to experience tunnel vision. She knew that her car was up ahead. If she could just get to her car, maybe the answers would come to her.

She shoved herself up and began stumbling down the sidewalk, still holding on to the wall, trying to steady her breathing. And it was then that she looked up and saw him. Standing not ten feet from her was Michael. She froze. There was a split second where she wasn't sure whether or not she was hallucinating. Until he started skulking toward her. This was real. When he reached her, he pulled his sunglasses off and looked deep into her eyes. She couldn't read what was behind them.

"You're coming with me."

...

No matter how many glances Michael stole over at Gretchen, she still looked the same. Shoulders slumped, head turned out toward the passenger side. She hadn't uttered a single word to him in the twenty odd minutes that they'd been reunited. She looked like a statue in her seat. She'd looked like a wreck when he found her outside of Daschell's house. She'd had no color in her face and she was sweating lightly, trying to stay upright. She only looked worse after she caught sight of him standing there. If a wilted flower could wilt anymore...

"You gonna keep giving me the silent treatment?" he asked her profile. She twinged when he spoke, but she still didn't look at him. "Do you have any idea what I went through to find you, Gretchen? How fucking terrified you had me just disappearing like that?"

That did the trick. She shot him a look that, well...If looks could kill, they'd both be dead. Whatever urge she had to speak, she quickly put down by staring straight ahead. Michael gripped the steering wheel tighter a huffed shallowly through his nostrils, chewing the inside of his cheek. He'd let himself forget for a moment just how furious he was with her for taking off. For getting herself in this fucked up situation with Daschell. Because when he finally saw her, he was relieved. The weeks they'd been apart...Weeks can feel like forever...Unfortunately, relief has a shelf-life. He kept looking between her and the road, but so far, her resolve was holding up.

After another ten minutes of that, they were in his driveway. Gretchen looked up at his house as though she'd never been here before. "What are we doing here?' she finally asked.

"Ah! She speaks!" Michael said. The sarcasm wasn't what he was going for. Not when he'd thought that being measured and timid would coax her out of the emotional foxhole that she'd hid herself in. He exited the car and walked around to the passenger side. He opened the door but Gretchen made no move to get out. "Come on."

She looked up at him like a petulant child and crossed her arms.

"Gretchen, I get that you're pissed off, but I chased you half-way around the state so I could talk to you, the least you could do is give me fifteen fucking minutes of conversation. I'm not giving you another option, 'cause if you take off again, guess what? I'm going to follow you and find you and we'll keep playing this game until you _talk to me."_

She sighed heavily and scratched her head, avoiding his eyes for a moment before she finally met his gaze. "Fifteen minutes. And then you have to take me back to my car and I don't have to talk to you the entire drive back."

"It's all I'm askin'."

"Fine," she said sharply, staring him down as she slung her bag over her shoulder and climbed out of the car.

She followed him into his house, though she was far away. When they got into the vestibule, she obviously didn't want to keep going, planting her feet. He turned in the doorway of the kitchen when he saw that she wasn't following him. Her arms were crossed and the look of bitterness on her face was ever-so-slightly washed over with something more somber as she glanced around the house. "It's kind of uncool that you brought me _here_ to talk," she said.

Michael swallowed. He knew just what she meant. This had been their little playground not that long ago and, if he was being honest with himself, he wasn't sure that he hadn't chosen his house for that very reason. Maybe she'd feel safe here. Or at least sentimental enough to give him a minute of her time. "Yeah, well I figured we should go somewhere nobody could hear us and I'm guessing you have no intention of telling me where it is _you've_ been hiding out since you got back," he sniped at her. He gestured for her to follow him into the kitchen and only got one stubborn look before she followed him in. She slung her purse over the back of one of the stools at the island and planted her hand on the counter, obviously trying to convey to him that she wasn't going to stay.

Michael stared at her and realized now that he didn't really know just what it was that he wanted to say to her. He knew that he wanted to scream at her for having the gall to go over his head. He wanted to know why she did it. He wanted to know why she wouldn't just let him bring her back to L.S. himself. Why they couldn't have figured something out together. She looked at him expectantly.

"Sending you to Sandy Shores was a mistake, alright? I get that. But instead of letting me fix it, you had to send me running around the state wondering what the fuck happened to you!" She rolled her eyes. "And as far as I'm concerned, that makes us even enough for you to give me a few minutes of honest conversation, just like you wanted!" he shouted. He was letting himself seethe and it was made all too easy with her standing there in front of him. She hardly looked like herself. She was undercover. Wearing pastels on pastels. Her manicure was perfect. Not chipped and carefree. She was wearing a little more eye makeup than usual. If it weren't for her hair being slightly askew, she'd look like a senators wife. And of course, she was angry with him. And not the kind of angry that he could fix by just talking to her and making promises.

She flashed him a scowl and shook her head slowly at him. "Even? So..." she began, putting her finger to her lip in an inquisitive way to make her point. "When did they change the definition of _even_ to include ripping someone away from their home so that you wouldn't have to feel guilty about firing them from their volunteer position seducing sleazy war profiteers?" she said, her voice climbing in pitch and volume. She walked around the island and peered into his face. _"Or_ do I get demerits for sleeping with you?" she said, laughing. But that smile quickly contorted into an agonized frown that she quickly hid from him by looking away. "Is _that_ why we're fucking _even_ , Michael?"

"It's not about that!" he yelled slamming his hand on the table. Gretchen didn't flinch or shy away from him, though. A couple weeks with Trevor must have tempered her against it. "The last time I tangled with Merryweather, I came home to find 'em holding my family hostage!" He moved closer to her and that's when she flinched, moved back. "After they got closer to figuring out who you are, I needed to do something. It wasn't the wisest thing I've done, but I did it to keep you out of trouble. Trouble that you're now actively seeking out!"

Gretchen threw her arms out defiantly. "What the fuck was I supposed to do? Stay out in the fucking desert until the three of you went into his fortress, firing blindly at the armed reinforcements that he keeps around his house?" she barked, stepping closer to him. The way she'd said it, with so much cynicism and sarcasm was enough to make him feel like an idiot.

He matched her then, step for step. "That _could_ have been an option if you hadn't inserted yourself into that fucking fortress, Gretch!"

"And you _could_ have been a sports announcer, Michael but instead you became a criminal and pissed off a well-funded private army. I _could_ have been an accountant but instead, I became a drug addict and got a stupid tattoo and got _involved_ with your little mob and because of those things, I'm at a bit of a fucking impasse, okay!" she yelled, turning her back on him. She leaned against the counter and pressed her face into her forearms. "And you know what? If you wanted me out of your life, you could have just _told_ me so and saved _both_ of us a lot of trouble. And pain." Her voice cracked on the last syllable. And like that, she looked helpless again and therefore a little more recognizable. She stared past him, frozen, biting her lip to keep the tears from coming.

 Michael's heart galloped in his chest. She was still on this, he saw. He had hoped against hope that she would have arrived at a different conclusion after being away from Trevor's crazy, bullshit ramblings, but no.

"I didn't want you out of my life, Gretchen. Especially permanently," he said softly, his voice catching in his throat. He walked closer to her and she stood up straight and looked at him, studying him all over with her eyes. "I tried to get you out of this even before we found out you were on their radar. But it was too late. I had to do something." Her eyes continued to dance around him for a moment. Big, spooky, accusing, beautiful hazel-grays that, after a moment, narrowed at him as she shook her head again.

"Can you just...just _be real_ for once, Michael? God, you are so full of shit..." she hissed. Her eyes were still wearing pain, though. Pain that shone through her opaque anger. He looked at her arms, which had grown just a little darker with the desert sun. And her hair, with a few more highlights than he remembered from last time. He watched her rub the back of her neck before she looked back up at him, her anger face having faded some. Her full, wide mouth with its light sheen was turned down into a sorrowful frown. Her mouth. That...mouth.

He barely knew what he was doing when he did it. When he walked into her space and leaned down and shoved his mouth into hers, letting himself feel what he'd missed so badly. Tasting it, not expecting anything. He just wanted to feel it again for a minute. He closed her bottom lip between his and let it slide out before he kissed the corner of her mouth, going for her partially opened mouth again and again until he felt her pull away.

He looked down at her. She stared at the counter, her face frozen into a look of concern while she ran her hands through her hair. She looked up at him sorrowfully. Both were breathing heavily now. "I'm sorry," he breathed out, leaning against the counter to get his wits about him again. The room stayed quiet for a moment save for the dwindling sound of each of their labored breaths. Michael stared at his knuckles on the counter, wishing to fuck he hadn't done that, but also being unable to ignore the tingle on his mouth that was left behind.

He was surprised, when he finally gained the courage to look over, that she was staring at him hard. Like she was concentrating on him. Reading him. He turned his body toward hers absently, and that's when she made her move. She pulled his head down by the back of his neck and shoved his mouth into hers again. He leaned right into it, savoring it even more than before. She kept one arm around his neck as she slipped the other into his shirt, wreathing her arm around his body. He could feel her fingers digging into his back lightly, which grounded him and instantly made him hard.

He matched her intensity, shoving his body into hers, sending her stumbling backward. He wrapped his arm around her waist to keep her from toppling and to keep her from breaking contact with him. Because she'd gotten him going now and he couldn't let go. He moved his hands down to her ass as the kissing got more fevered. He hoisted her up and she wrapped her legs around his body and they careened into the wall. He planted kisses on her neck and as her sighs turned into whimpers and whimpers into quiet moans he began sucking her neck, salty with sweat and smelling of verbena and sage until she interrupted him to pull her shirt over her head. She shoved her now-disheveled hair out of her face as he stole a look at her chest, clad in a red pushup bra he'd never seen until now. His shirt had ridden up from the contact and he suddenly became aware of the feel on his stomach of the wetness of her arousal that had soaked through her panties and he knew he needed her yesterday.

He got them to the dining room table and set her down, fumbling ferociously with his belt buckle until she reached down and helped him with it. As she shoved his pants down with one hand, she pulled him in by the neck for another kiss, which he graciously accepted while he reached behind her back and unhooked her bra. He tossed it aside and slid his hands down her body and pulled her panties off from under her skirt. She kept eye contact with him as she gripped his cock and pressed it against her. He slid in slow but the feeling of it, one that he had missed, pulled a strangled gasp from him. She just kept staring in his eyes, letting him stroke nice and slow while she planted her hands behind her on the table, almost daring him to do exactly what he was doing.

He kept it slow and steady for a while, just enjoying the feeling of her. He cupped her cheek in his hand and she let herself melt into his touch, gripping his wrist and staring him down with a look comprised of some unheard of combination of mercy and desire. Finally, her fervor began to match his. After a little bit, she looked down between their bodies with her mouth hanging open and something like begging behind her eyes. Her heavy breathing ascended into moaning and he picked up the pace, just a little bit as he felt her getting close. And then she reached a crescendo, gripping his shoulder and bracing herself against the table while she buried her forehead in his neck as she came with a breathy whimper.

Michael wasn't far behind her. A handful of good thrusts was all it took to send him over. He leaned forward and wrapped his arm around her middle, pulling her in. She looked up at him and they kissed while he came, desperately and just a little sloppy for the turgidity and then limpness of his body, but sweet nonetheless. When he was done he kissed her again, properly. Her hair was matted down with sweat in some places. He brushed it out of her face as he held her.

His heart was still pounding, his stomach doing flips. Whenever he'd been with other women, even when he'd lost his virginity, as soon as he got off, that feeling of falling would always fade away. But not with her. With her, he always still wanted her after, just in a different way. He wanted to shelter her or watch her win at something or stare at her the way you would a temperamental flower in a terrarium. He kissed her face, slowly, tiredly, but with urgency, while she went limper and limper in his arms, her eyes falling closed every few breaths. He felt just then how empty he'd felt until now. How he'd couched his needs and wants in his fucked up attempt to keep her out of harm's way. So now he had to make a choice. He could try and steal the reigns from her and risk losing her again or he could try something else...

...

Hours later, they were laying on his couch, she in nothing but her skirt, he having put his pants back on, though he was now shirtless at Gretchen's playful insistence that she not be the only one exposed. He reckoned that she had missed him as much as he had her, though. She was on her back while he perched his upper body over hers, stroking her thigh and watching her slowly run her thumb across her chin, back and forth as she spoke. She looked pensive, but not as though she wanted to run away again.

"Was he mean to you?"

Michael snickered. "Well, the guy's not exactly a teddy bear, but I've been where he is and...it ain't a teddy bear factory."

She spoke again, almost as if she had a list of questions for him that she'd prepared to be answered in short order. "Did you tell him about us?"

He squeezed her thigh lightly. "I didn't need to, he already knew. Besides, the last thing he needs to hear straight from the horses mouth is that his daughter's taken up with a...dummied up Didier-Sachs wearin' sonofabitch, to use his phrasing," Michael laughed. "I wasn't going to give the guy details about what you and I are doin'."

She looked at him then. Her mouth was pressed into a hard line. It was like she could see through him. "What are...we doing?" she asked, drawing out the last two words in a peculiar way.

Michael fidgeted at the question, staring at her belly button. "What do you want us to be doing?"

Gretchen looked past him again, at the ceiling, calm and contemplative. "Surviving."

"We're gonna be okay, baby," he said quietly, stroking her hair now. "But you need to get rid of these crazy ideas about doin' this on your own. I'm not letting you."

She looked at him hard. "I can't just not show up anymore. He'll know something is up." She took his hand and studied it, pouting. "Besides, I told you, I don't want you guys going in there and setting off a gunfight..." she trailed off with a grimace.

Michael contemplated this. He'd gone into this positive that he was going to twist her arm until she saw things his way or until he could find a way to force her to get out of it without sending her Trevor's way. But she was right. It was a real catch-22. If she didn't show up, after all that Daschell had told her, he might make her and send the hounds after her. But he couldn't let her keep doing what she was doing, either.

"We'll talk to Lester tomorrow. And we'll figure out a way to make this go off without a firefight. Or without you being a sitting duck."

She was quiet again, drawing patterns on his chest with her finger. Her eyes were even lighter than usual. "And then what? What happens if we make it out of this?"

"What, with me and you?" She volleyed with a look as if to say _duh._ Michael sighed and swallowed. "Well, sweet thing...I think I'm, er...beyond the point of rescue where you're concerned."

She batted her eyes at him without meaning to. "Do you want to be rescued, Michael?"

Michael hooked his arm around her thigh and pulled her into him. She settled right into the closeness, looping her arm around his torso. "Not if you're gonna stick around," he whispered. "I'm fucking crazy about you."

Their faces were only inches apart. "I'm still mad at you," Gretchen said through a lazy smile.

Michael smiled in kind and moved his face closer to hers. "You'll have to give me a chance to make it up to you, then." He kissed her nose. "Maybe I'll bust your old man outta the clink for ya when this is all done."

Gretchen giggled and pressed her face into the side of his. "You'd only shave sixteen months off his sentence, Michael. You wanna squash your Merryweather problems just so you can piss off the feds?"

Michael was in the middle of pawing her bare ass when she said it. One syllable was all it took to flip the switch. He looked down at her. "Baby, you're a genius."

She pulled her head back to look at him. "No...Michael, I was saying you _shouldn't_ piss off the feds."

Michael's eyes drifted to the wall. "No, no. I mean...We can use them."

"Use the feds?" she asked, slowly, clearly confused.

"Not all of 'em. Just one..."

Gretchen's eyes moved slowly to the sides of her periphery as though she were trying to put together a puzzle that she could never solve. "Michael?" she said, concerned now.

Michael was nodding, slowly. He looked down at her and smiled.

"Davey."

Gretchen could only blink back at him.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is. I know it was highly anticipated by some of you and I hope that I didn't disappoint. Thank you, GloriousGamine for bringing Dave Norton to the foreground. You're brilliant and I would kiss you if you were in front of me. Leave me some love in the comments if you're feeling so inclined, guys. You light up my life <3


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. Sorry this took so long. This is getting increasingly difficult to write as they often do. I hope the stuff about the security blah blah doesn't come off too contrived, but I'm having a hard time engineering the best circumstances for this. Forgive me. Love you.

Gretchen was a full-blown ball of nerves by the time she took a seat at the outdoor cafe, their predetermined meeting place for this little _rendezvous_ with this _government-employed helpe_ _r._ A helper that Michael had hardly spilled his guts about. And a good gut-spilling was exactly what Gretchen had wanted, given the fact that he expected for her to go into this blind and trust someone who worked for the FIB. The whole thing made her nauseated. 

She had tried to listen through the door when Michael had called the guy. Dave Norton was his name. But all she could make out aside from Michael's muffled inflections was the occasional frustrated utterance such as _I know, Dave but.._ and _For chrissakes, Davey_ before he emerged from the bathroom and told her that it was done. They had a meeting. Now she sat at the wrought steel cafe seat, made up entirely of ornate lattice work, feeling it pressing uncomfortably into her back and ass like another cruel taunt. A cherry on top of her wracked nerves. She absently rubbed the arm rests vigorously before she felt Michael's hand capture her wrist. She looked up in his face.

"Hey," he said gently, almost cooing. "It's alright. This guy's above board." Gretchen looked over the tops of her sunglasses at him with wide eyes. Michael quickly caught himself. "Er...You know what I mean."

"No," she hissed at him. "I don't know what you mean because there's no way I could know because you're haven't given me any fucking details about why you're able to call in favors from the FIB." She had said it in a measured tone but she still glanced around to make sure that nobody had heard. "I don't like this, Michael."

Michael pulled his chair closer to hers and leaned in to whisper at her. "Gretch, I would never do anything that would get you in trouble with the feds."

She met him half way. "I know you wouldn't do anything like that _on purpose-"_

 _"Or at all,"_ he snipped. "Where's that trust we talked about, Gretch?"

She dropped her shoulders. "I do trust you," she breathed, noting the defensive, almost-whiny tenor in her voice.

"Start acting like it," he said, more softly this time. He clutched the back of her neck with one hand and pulled her face to his. "We take this meeting, we get an idea of what we're up against, what our options are, we get out clean, okay?"

His breath was hot against her face, in a nice way. She was suddenly and completely transfixed by the feel and by the sound of his voice. The way it always seemed to bring her down from whatever black cloud she was being swallowed by if he wasn't shouting at her. "Then what?" she whispered at him, placing her hands on either side of his seat.

She saw his one of his cheeks turn up into a half smile as he stroked the back of her head. "Then I'll show you what a laugh I can be when I'm not all business," he told her, planting a kiss on her mouth, which was smiling in spite of it's owner. Her stomach danced at his words, out of humor at his self-deprecation or anticipation at what he might be alluding to, she didn't know. But it made her feel giddy, the delicious way she used to feel when she knew she'd be getting a fix. And _this_ might have been even more decadent and dangerous, but she didn't care. 

She didn't have a whole hell of a lot of time to soak it up, though. A shadow overtook them, followed by a deep voice, completely joyless and flat in its affectation. "So it's like that, huh?" Gretchen looked up to see who the voice was coming from and was met with a vision of a tall, barrel-bellied man with sad, bulging blue eyes and a depression beard. His hands were on his hips as he shook his head in open disapproval at the sight of them. "You, Michael, are the biggest cliche I've ever seen."

Michael stood to meet him. "Davey, it's nice to see you, too," he said trying to make his sarcasm the centerpiece of the exchange in an obvious bid to put down Gretchen's fear. Gretchen, who turned sideways to gape up at the agent in his cheap suit and leftward leaning bias. He looked down at her, pulling his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose to take her in. She felt weirdly under-dressed in her cut-offs and combat boots and peasant top. She should have worn a cheap suit, too.

"Dave Norton, this is Gretchen-"

"Gretchen Enwright," Dave interrupted. "AKA Willa Best, AKA Alison Tremaine, AKA Roisin Kirk."

Gretchen shot up from her seat and spun around to face Agent Norton, her shoulders immediately going rigid. She was already sore at this stranger for reciting her aliases from her using days so unceremoniously, for being so wanton with the tokens of her past mistakes. And Michael must have sensed it because she felt his hand on the small of her back. "Easy, sweetheart," he murmured into her ear.

Dave Norton stared down at her, shoving his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, but still looking at her over the tops of them. He extended his hand to her to shake but she just stared at it for a minute, as though it were a coiled up snake waiting to strike her. She zoned out for a moment, perfectly oblivious to the mounting tension between the three of them. Michael leaned in again. "Shake his hand, Gretchen."

She looked at his hand one more time before she took it firmly in her own. And that was the magic bullet. He retracted his hand and sighed, pulling off his sunglasses to clean them with the lapel of his coat. "May I suggest we take this somewhere more private?"

...

Gretchen was slumped in the backseat of the luxury sedan, scanning between the two men in front. Their words were about as meaningful as radio static just then. Michael gestured wildly while Dave rested his wrist on the steering wheel, shaking his head slowly and squeezing the bridge of his nose. She got the gist, though. Dave was ticked at Michael for reopening the previously squashed conflict with Merryweather without coming to him first and Michael was ticked at Dave for not getting it through his head that they'd had no control over the whole thing. Otherwise, the two of them just looked like overgrown adolescent boys arguing over which first-person shooter was superior.

 _Men,_ thought Gretchen. She was secretly tickled now that it appeared that everything her mother had told her about them was true. Everything was a pissing match. Of course, Gretchen loathed her own essentialism where gender was involved. She prided herself on being a stalwart proponent of equality and all the stereotypes were unnecessary and disruptive background noise, but it kept coming up true. At least all the unflattering stuff about the coarser sex.

Right in the thick of her internal musings, she became aware that both the men were staring at her expectantly, which immediately put her stomach in knots. She felt like she had been caught daydreaming in class. She straightened up. "Sorry?"

"When you were in Daschell's house, did you find anything that we could use in planning this thing?" Michael asked.

Gretchen blinked hard and searched her mind, sighing. "Well, I was kind of preoccupied with him to be honest. He never let me leave him alone and I haven't had a chance to dose his rooibos tea yet..."

"Did you overhear any of his security guys talking about anything of interest?" Dave asked.

Gretchen slumped in her seat. "No."

Michael and Dave sighed defeated sighs simultaneously. For some reason, that sound threw a switch in Gretchen's mind. "But I did grab some stuff out of the waste basket in his office yesterday when we got interrupted. He stepped right outside the door to sign for something, so I couldn't get all of it before he came back in, but I saw that one of the papers had the same weird typeface as something I found two weeks ago that didn't make sense," Gretchen started. She opened her bag and pulled out the rumpled sheets that she'd swiped from the office along with some shredded paper that had clung to the bundle. She'd had every intention of examining it with more context when she got back to her little hidey-hole in Vespucci, but Michael had thrown a wrench in that. She handed the papers to Dave.

He flattened them against the steering wheel and peered at them closely, scanning the pages. He held up two of them side by side and looked between them.

"What is it, Davey?"

Gretchen couldn't see what kind of expression Dave was wearing with his back turned to her, but she could see him glancing at her in the rear view mirror. "It's a manifest," Dave began, stealing glances at Gretchen in the mirror. "On a shipping container full of components for a security system overhaul scheduled to take place at Daschell's private residence some time this month."

Gretchen's eyes widened. She guffawed. _"_ That was stupid for them to throw _that_ out-"

Dave whipped around to look at her, wielding the documents at her. "Gretchen, can you remember what the other documents said? The ones you said you found before?"

She paused and thought about it. "No," she answered tenuously. "I told you, they didn't make sense without the other stuff. It was all clicks and whistles." She caught herself in her own nonsense figure of speech. "Well, 'cept, ya know, it was on paper-"

"Where are you keeping it? I need to see it," Dave insisted.

Gretchen gulped. She was barely comfortable telling this government agent that she had swiped sensitive documents from a waste-basket that was _not_ on a curb and was therefore _not_ fair game according to city ordinances and probably federal ones, too. Even so, when Michael captured her eyes and stared at her expectantly, she began to feel verbose again. "Vespucci Beach."

...

Michael was at Gretchen's heels, looking around the cement thoroughfare that joined two rows of storage units in the Vespucci Canals. Dave followed close behind. The place was desolate even though it was only around five p.m. Occasionally, he caught a glimpse of someone in the corners mean-mugging or pairs of prying eyes glaring at them from the windows of the apartments above, but otherwise, it was quiet.

They followed Gretchen clear down to the end of the lane before she pulled out her keys and opened the padlock. She hoisted the door upward to reveal, well...darkness. Until she disappeared into the darkness to turn on a set of lights that she'd rigged up in the corner. The place smelled like stale air and car exhaust. Gretchen hoisted herself over a desk, her upper body invisible, her legs suspended in the air as she began flinging papers behind her. After a moment, she shoved back and got back onto her feet. Her face was flush from the blood rushing to her face. She knelt down and began scooping up the documents.

"This is all of 'em," she said softly, obviously trying to avoid the piercing, curious gazes of her two older companions. She did so by rifling through them until she found what she was looking for. A small collection in the plethora of papers that she'd squirreled away. She held up the pages. "I think this is what you want," she said to Dave, standing up and handing him the pages.

Michael looked around the squalid surroundings and at her, standing on her tiptoes and craning her neck to look at what she'd handed Dave, looking for his reaction, for answers. This is what she'd been devoting herself to in the time that they were apart. A one-woman crack team grasping desperately at a way to take down Daschell, disorganized though it was. He was simultaneously repulsed and endeared.

"This is indeed what we were looking for," Dave said dryly, sounding exasperated all of a sudden. The very thing that was putting them in a position to destroy their aggressors was also a massive pain in the ass from the sounds of it. Dave looked around the shed now. "You've done some good work here, Gretchen."

She looked at him wide-eyed, apparently shocked at the compliment coming from a man who only forty minutes ago had taunted her with her past. "Thanks," she mumbled tenuously. She looked over at Michael again, screwing her mouth to the side and narrowing her eyes. It was a wholly unreadable look for how expressive it was.

"From the looks of it, Daschell's personnel team is set to deliver the security system four days from now. Installation will take seven hours and the configuration will leave a window of a couple of hours while the satellites find it."

"Jesus," Michael huffed. "Sounds like overkill."

Dave glanced up at Michael, holding up the pages to make his next point. "This is the type of security outfit that warlords use in their bunkers overseas. It's absurd, but it looks like you scared this fucker good," he said, casting his eyes back onto the page. He studied it for another moment before he straightened the stack and walked back out of the shed. Michael followed.

"So am I correct in understanding that those couple of hours are gonna be our shot?" Michael asked Dave.

Dave looked off in the distance and inhaled through his nose. "That's certainly the option I'll be looking at first. The _how_ is going to be a mite difficult but that's never stopped us before," he said, turning back to Michael with what was as close to a wry smile as Dave Norton ever got. Michael turned to see Gretchen pulling the storage shed door shut before locking it and joining the two men as they began walking back toward Dave's car.

All of a sudden, this whole thing felt like a mistake. Probably because he'd seen for himself how Gretchen's hand prints were all over this thing. How she'd gone rogue on a pack of rogues. The procession back to Dave's car was somber and silent until they got in. Dave took the opportunity to scold Michael once more. "I can't believe you put us right back into the woods with this, Michael," he said with the affectation of an angry father.

"Hey, I was just trying to do what's best for everyone. Of course if I had it to do over, I would have left some people out of it," he said looking at Gretchen. She was wearing sunglasses again, but he knew she was rolling her eyes at him. "Either way, we gotta do this."

Dave sighed again and with that the somberness returned, dialed to eleven, along with the silence. The only sound that filled the car was Gretchen tapping her foot until a phone ringer cut through the quiet. It was coming from Gretchen's bag. She fished around in her over-sized leather bag until she found it and pulled it out. She gasped then, earning the attention of Dave and Michael.

She yanked her sunglasses off and looked at the screen again, to be sure. "It's him," she said, looking up at Michael wide-eyed.

"Don't answer it," Michael barked without thinking.

"No, answer it," Dave protested.

Gretchen bit her lip while her eyes darted between them. Seemingly without paying attention to what she was doing, she answered, holding the phone under her chin and speaking into it as though it were explosive.

"Hello?" she said weakly into the phone.

_"Elise?"_

"Uh huh," she choked out.

She shrugged at Michael in a way that said _what the fuck do I do?_

"Keep him on the line," Dave hissed in a barely audible whisper.

 _"Is everything alright, Elise?"_ came Daschell's eerie voice laden with faux-concern.

Gretchen croaked out a little noise. "I'm fine. I just...I'm...In line at the bank," she stammered.

 _"I won't keep you then,"_ he said. Michael was trying not to tap his fingers nervously on the headrest for Gretchen's fading composure. _"I'm calling to invite you to dinner, Elise. You've been putting in so much good work with me that I'd like to show my appreciation."_

Gretchen was balling and unballing her fist rapidly, staring at nothing before she looked to Michael. As soon as he'd captured her eyes, he shook his head ferociously while Dave reached over the seat and pointed at the phone with a jaunting finger shaking his head emphatically. The odd, silent chorus between the two of them filled the vacuousness of the car's interior with something uncanny. If Gretchen was in danger of losing her cool completely just then, she didn't show it.

"Okay," she said simply. "What were you thinking, Wallace?" Michael's eyes were on her now and all she could do was shake her head at him apologetically as her mouth hung open.

_"I'd like to do it here at my place if you don't mind. It's more...quiet that way. Reservations can be such a bother and I'd like some one on one if you're amenable to that."_

Michael had to fight the rising alpha male territoriality that was fighting to emerge just then. He gripped his seat and sighed heavily through his nose once, twice, three times as Gretchen tried to ignore him.

"Wallace, it's hardly quiet with an eight-man security detail," she said into the phone, sounding surprisingly calm all of a sudden. "I mean, we get interrupted four or five times a day as it is. I'm sure it gets even more hectic once the sun goes down."

Wallace chuckled from the other end of the line. _"You really are astute, Elise."_ They could hear him sucking in a breath at the end of his laughter. This sick fuck really was enjoying this. This twisted courtship that he was orchestrating. _"If you're that concerned about it, my dear, I'm happy to give the fellas a night off so that you and I can be alone. What night are you available?"_

Dave grabbed the stack of documents and discarded a few haphazardly on the floor before he found the one he was looking for. Gretchen filled the air with non-lexical vocalizations of "uh" and "er" until Dave held up the page and pointed aggressively at the day and time that the security system was set to go online. She leaned forward and squinted at the page. 

"It looks like I have an opening on...Friday night...late...I can be there at eight-thirty," she said, her voice betraying not an ounce of the deer in the headlights look she was wearing on her face. There was a long pause on the other end. The three of them sat in tense silence, waiting for some indication that he was on to them. That, after all, must have been what all of them were thinking when he bothered to call right at the moment that they were recovering the fragmented manifest.

_"Sure. I think I can work with that."_

The relief was palpable. "So, I'll see you then?"

_"I look forward to it."_

"Great," Gretchen said, nervously flicking something invisible off of her knee. "I'll speak to you then, Wallace."

 _"Er, not so fast, Elise..."_ Gretchen's chest, which had been moving at the same nervous tempo that Michael's had, both of them trying to control their breaths, stopped moving suddenly as her eyes keened up. 

"Sorry?" she managed to choke out.

_"I'd like to request that you lay off the pastels this once..."_

"I, er...I don't understand," Gretchen stammered.

_"When you show up at my place on Friday..."_

Gretchen looked up at Michael, who was doing all he could to suppress the bile in his throat at the menace that Daschell's very voice was polluting their ears with. He gritted his teeth and stayed silent. Gretchen looked the way he felt, her mouth pulled into a rigid frown, eyes narrowed, as though she herself were focusing on not cracking.

_"Wear a red dress..."_

...

Dave had taken the two of them back to the cafe and left them unceremoniously, though it was clear to Michael that his anger and disgust at the prospect of Gretchen going in unguarded ( _again_ after he'd finally recovered her safe), was not lost on him. Dave had looked between the two of them almost apologetically before he vocally confirmed some details and then left the pair to watch him drive down the boulevard.  

They didn't utter a word to one another once they got back into Michael's car and they kept the silence locked down for another five blocks until Michael couldn't stand it anymore. He'd been trying to control the agonizing cocktail of fear and anger that was eating at him, but his resolve was gone. He cranked the steering wheel to the left and pulled into an alley behind a pawn shop before he cut the engine. He leaned forward into the steering wheel and took a couple of deep breaths, knowing full well that a failure to do so would lead to an explosion.

After a moment, he looked at Gretchen, who stared back brazenly. Whatever look he was wearing startled her, though she immediately caught herself and fell into obstinacy. Her shoulders fell as she breathed out her preemptive strike. "Well, what did you _think_ was going to happen."

He snickered emptily, partly because he knew exactly what she meant, but also because it was all he could do not to scream at her for agreeing to meeting with Daschell alone on the night that they were meant to put him under once and for all. "Not _fucking_ _that,"_ he snarled at her.

"You brought me to meet that guy, Michael. It was kind of implied that I was meant to be involved somehow..."

"Yeah as an informant or something, Gretchen. Feeding us details about the layout of his house from a safe distance or telling us if he had a fucking tree nut allergy that we could exploit. _Not_ sticking your head into the lion's mouth! Again!"

She sighed and leaned her head back against the passenger side window, looking at him with a look of almost-pity. This was their new game, it seemed. Trying to subordinate the other. One trying to make the other look ridiculous and childish and in need of mollification. "I didn't _concoct_ these circumstances, Michael," she said flatly.

"I know-"

"Not a single fucking choice I've made has been to slight you, _Michael,_ " she interrupted, now with more animus, repeating his name to make a point. It made him uncomfortable. It often made him uncomfortable when women were angry with him, always had. And it deflated him a little bit now, his voice softening on its own.

"Gretch-"

"If I'd thought you were going to take everything I've done to protect you so fucking personally-"

Like that, his self-preservation kicked in. He cut her off by grabbing her chin and forcing her to look at him. He didn't want to see this side of her right now. The harder side. The defensive side. The side that lashed out sometimes. He'd be fooling himself if he didn't admit to himself that  _sometimes,_ behind closed doors and accompanied by just the right amount of _fuck me_ eyes, that it turned him on and made his affection for her run a bit deeper. But he wasn't trying to anger bang her in an alley. He was trying to get her to see that she was  _wrong._

"Pipe down," he exhaled. He fought to form the words to convey what he wanted to say to her. He stared into her angry eyes, which were also a bit taken aback. He breathed heavily through his nose as he gathered his thoughts. The thoughts weren't coming though. He was at a total loss as to how he was supposed to get back control of the situation. "Where've you been sleeping these past couple weeks?"

Gretchen looked at him curiously, clearly confused by his sideways leap in logical argumentation. She pulled back out of his hand a bit, but he didn't retreat. He was still in her face. "I haven't been sleeping much. I've been taking a lot of naps in my car to get me through. I've been keeping my stuff and showering at a motel. But last night with you was the first full night of sleep."

Michael huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. For some reason that revelation stood out among all of the crazy shit she had done and made him realize how tough she was. Nodding off in her car when she had to and then puttering around some motel half-alive just to follow through on what she'd agreed to do months ago.

"If you're going in, you're going in prepared," he said firmly.

She blinked back at him before she smiled a tiny smile of acknowledgement. She grabbed his hand from her face and kissed his palm and then his mouth before she straightened in her seat, cuing Michael to drive again. He just kind of laughed and shook his head at her, partly solemn, partly amused before he pulled out and headed for Ammunation. 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couplefew more chapters and this bad boy will be in the bag! Please let me know if you have any suggestions or gentle criticisms. As I said before, this thing is starting to get away from me a little bit, hence the infrequent updates. Thank you for reading :)


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a lame ass. I hope you enjoy this chapter. It was a bit of a bitch to me while I was committing it to the digital forever land, but I hope you find it worth the read. No real resolution yet, I'll get to that in the next chapter, which will hopefully be more kind to me while also being readable. Many kisses to you my lovelies.

"Ow," Gretchen whined in a sobby breath as she reached behind her to zip up her dress. She had some wicked bad tennis elbow from her shooting lessons, which were nearly non-stop over the last couple of days at Michael's insistence. They made their dojo on the shooting gallery floor of Ammunation and then the Palamino Highlands, but it was always rapid reloading and quick draws as Gretchen had fought against the fatigue and Michael's fastidiousness in this little house-cleaning exercise. Finally, she had a respite but it was only here and now, mere hours before she was due at Daschell's for their little _one on one._

There was a knock at the bathroom door. "Identify yourself," Gretchen called flatly as she shoved the long lace sleeve of the dress up her arm to look at the invisible bruise in the tissues of her elbow. Michael didn't heed her request, but simply walked in, closing the door behind him. She looked over at him. He leaned against the door and sighed through his nose, taking her in. The dress wasn't terribly scandalous. It was a deep shade of crimson, covered in lace, body-conforming up top and frilly on the bottom, and super uncomfortable. She would have to try to keep herself from sweating lest the lace grated at her skin any more than it already did.

She avoided his sullen eyes by turning back to the mirror and swiping a tissue from the box on the vanity. She pressed her mouth over it, to remove any excess lip colour before inspecting her teeth for any smearing. She turned to Michael, finally. She had been acting entirely too casual about this thing, a fact that wasn't lost on her. But she knew that he was going to be all knitted-brows and last minute utterances of disapproval. It wasn't like it had been before, where he'd rooted for her and made her feel like she could do it. So she had to make up for it with some feigned confidence.

She slipped into her heels as he came up behind her and when she felt him pressed up behind her, she turned around and looked up at him. "How's the elbow?" he asked.

"It's killing me," she said quietly, searching his face for answers as to what he was thinking. Waiting, as she often found herself doing now, to see if she could stop him from protesting her involvement before he started. She put her hands behind her head and leaned back but stopped and winced when she felt a hot jolt of pain in her arm.

Michael grabbed the arm and began massaging it. "Here," he whispered. Now it was _him_ avoiding _her_ eyes. "I remember when I first got my hands on a piece how sore my arm got..."

"I can't imagine a time in your life when you couldn't bench three-quarters of your body weight..."

"I just hope it doesn't lock up on you if...You know, if you have to use it," he muttered, ignoring her attempt at placating him with flattery.

She cocked her head at him and forced him to look her in the eye. "This is happening, you know," she said curtly.

An irritated sigh emanated from deep within his chest. She'd never seen him behave so much like an angry kid being forced to go to his little sister's ballet recital- though the stakes were much higher and his new disposition was thus that much more insufferable.

"I must be fuckin' crazy letting you go through with this," he said, seemingly to himself.

"It's not a matter of you _letting_ me do anything because you don't get to decide that for me because- I'll remind you again- I am an _adult_. But I will tell you that at this point, if you try to sabotage it, you're guaranteed to get all of us iced, Michael."

She looked at his eyes, clearer and bluer than she had ever seen them. He narrowed them at her almost menacingly, but she could tell that he knew that she was right. Backing out was a non-option. They stared at each other long and hard. Michael broke the stare down by pulling her in by the waist aggressively. It was a possessive gesture, the severity of it augmented by Michael breathing hard out of his nose while he twirled a piece of her hair around his finger.

Gretchen softened the tension between them by wrapping her good arm around his shoulder and moving her face close to his, close enough so that she could feel his breaths growing softer. "Don't you dare get your self killed, little girl."

Gretchen stayed silent, knowing that there was no way she could promise anything like that. She was putting her self-preservation on the back burner for the time being. She wouldn't- no- she _couldn't_ think about that right now. She needed to just do it, the way that Trevor had told her during their time together back in Sandy Shores. She'd asked him how, _how_ in the hell it could be easier for them to go into a bank or a store and steal and then run and then look over their shoulders indefinitely.

 _You just fucking do it, Gretchen,_ he'd told her coarsely, plainly offended at her short-sighted view of how the world worked for them. Those malignant makers of mischief that wanted the good life but knew that the only way to get it was to take it by force. One of them being Michael. Dude was hardly a puppy dog in his temperament or affectation, a fact that she'd already faced. But when he held her like he was thirsty and whispered to her things that were for her ears only, she knew that there was a human being in there.

"I need you to zip me up," she whispered.

...

Lester and Franklin made one hell of a whacked-out, dystopian facsimile of a style team. Lester was fixing itty-bitty microphones to her hoop earrings while Franklin was putting them on the bottoms of her shoes, between the sole and the heel. Michael was tasked with concealing the tiny four-and-a-half-inch pistol under her skirt, on the front side of her hip where a standard sweep check wouldn't catch it.

She'd had to stifle a laugh when she'd seen the thing, only straightening up at Michael's stern admonition that _it was a weapon_. Then she'd had to suppress an angry outburst at the fact that Michael had made her shoot full-sized weapons when he was only giving her this tiny thing that would have likely spared her the nagging pain in her elbow.

She held her arms out while he looped the makeshift holster around her waist and placed the gun in it.

"See if you can sit down with that thing strapped to you."

Gretchen took a seat next to Michael at the dining table. She shifted carefully, trying both a natural posture and a stiff one, which she figured was more realistic. "It's digging into my pooch."

"Shut up, you don't have pooch," Michael scorned.

"I wasn't angling for that, I'm serious. I can feel the hammer in my ovary."

"Stand up," Michael said exasperated. He immediately went back to work, readjusting the gun, though Gretchen knew it was futile. The fucking thing was going to end up right back there.

Just then the front door blew open immediately followed by a rapscallion chorus of one. "Well, ladies? We fixin' to do this thing or what?" he bellowed as he entered the dining room.

"Christ, T, would a little subtlety be too much to ask for?" Michael griped.

Trevor pulled a chair away from the table and sat on it backwards. "Under the circumstances, _Mikey,_ yes, it would be. We've never handled _Merryweather_ with the utmost discretion and it's always turned out fine."

"Except for the fact that we're paying the fucking piper _now,_ " Lester muttered from his seat on the ottoman, where he was still noodling with the earring.

"Whatever, Wheels," Trevor shot back. He looked at Michael and Gretchen now, his eyes narrowing in exaggerated disgust at the scene before him. "God, you two, is _now_ really the best time to seal your sexual connection? I mean, if you're going to do that in front of your friends, we oughta get a better show than a clumsy-"

"If you finish that thought, I'm going to kick you so hard in the teeth that your face turns inside out," Michael barked at him, eliciting a gesture of surrender from Trevor.

 Gretchen cleared her throat, suddenly self conscious and hyper-aware of the feeling of Michael's hands blindly manipulating the gun and holster. She was also acutely and uncomfortably aware that bringing a gun into this might have been a terrible idea. Sure, she'd garnered the target's trust, but he was (rightly) paranoid about his personal safety and _shit,_ everyone who'd ever seen a noir espionage film knew that letting yourself be enchanted by a stranger that comes into your life suddenly was the fast-track to getting murdered.

She could feel herself losing her cool a little bit. She looked down at Michael who was dutifully smoothing down her skirt where he'd rumpled it with his hands, assaying it now to see if the gun was visible. When he looked up from where he was seated at Gretchen, his face morphed into one of worry. He stood up. "Hey...You alright?"

And then, as though the four of them had colluded to keep watch over her sanity without telling her, three more pairs of eyes were on her suddenly, each wearing an individualized brand of concern. Lester, who had been testing the microphone connection was looking at her through the side of his eyes. Franklin's brows were raised, his full mouth slightly opened. Trevor looked transfixed but alert, and Michael had on his soft-eyes, which she usually only saw him wearing after they'd had a good roll.

"Yeah, why?" Gretchen blurted out, her lie sounding strange to her ears.

"'Cause if you were drooling right now, you'd like a full-blown catatonic," Trevor said in his low growl.

She cast her glance sideways, honing in on one specific ornamental floor tile and swallowed hard. She felt suddenly as though her mind was a tiny machine and she could feel the pinions and springs working in time, clicking things into place, keeping things in motion. The last time she'd felt that way was when she'd been standing on a sidewalk, waiting to walk into a detox facility. Trying to psych herself up to take that first step back into humanity. Leading up to that moment, she had taken and memorized her inventory of reasons why she couldn't keep putting it off. By the time she'd made it through the double doors, she realized that she was ready. Now or never and that. She'd done it then. She could do it now.

She grabbed Michael's wrist and looked at his watch.

"Seven-twenty-six," she muttered. "In current traffic, should take about forty minutes..." She walked to Franklin and took her shoes from him, ignoring the queer look he was giving her as he watched her putter about. She continued muttering as she slipped the heels on. "Merryweather time is about seven minutes fast..." She grabbed the earrings from Lester and stared hard at the wall, concentrating on her train of thought. "And if we can burn this war-profiteering prick in the next four hours, _nobody_ will want to try their luck with the four of _you_ again and we can put this behind us," she said, completely devoid of emotion as she put the earrings in.

Yes, it was all coming together now. She felt her shoulders relax a little bit and she ran her hand through her hair slowly as she stretched her neck and took a deep breath. A moment later, she saw that her little planning and pep talk to herself had alienated everyone else in the room, who looked at her like she's lost her mind. She didn't let it sting her, though. She'd been stared down worse. And what was better was that she felt like she was in control again.

"Um, Gretchen..." she heard Franklin say.

She turned to him. She knew that he was getting ready to evaluate her mental state. But she didn't need it.

"Don't worry, Frank. We still have ten minutes to go over our plan..."

...

 As Gretchen edged her way up the fancy but sparsely populated roadway to Daschell's estate, she found herself relieved that nobody was in her ear questioning her sanity. Surely, they all realized that there was no time for that right then. They had a directive and they couldn't waste their precious final minutes of steady contact trying to check for brain bugs.

"Try and keep the conversation light and professional. If he tries anything with his hands-"

"Jesus," Gretchen hissed without thinking.

"I can hear you, Gretch," Michael replied.

She ignored it. "There's a huge laundry chute in the master bath and his smaller office is right across from that. If you can't find what you're looking for in the main office, you could send Trevor in through the chute to check."

"Noted."

Gretchen pulled up a little past the reinforced perimeter and parked the car. There was a precious few minutes left before her entrance would be a fashionable one according to the standards of the other half. She stared blankly at her dash, her eyes moving slowly to the chincy little hula dancer that adorned it. She listened to the quiet, which was becoming more deafening, disrupted only by the tiny sound that the little dashboard ornament made. _Click-whir-click-whir-click._

Gretchen's hand shot out without her permission. Her fingers gripped the base of the ornament, stifling the torturous noise it made. She tried to focus on her breathing for a moment, but that made the situation worse. She then shifted the rearview mirror to face her, checking her teeth for lipstick once more, making sure her hair wasn't out of place.

She noticed then that the combination of dark lipstick and side-swept pin curls made her look almost obtrusively retro, like a fucking chorus girl from the 1940's and suddenly, it made sense to her why Michael had stared at her extra hard in his driveway before he'd let her get into her car. His eyes had cruised over her slowly as he bit his pinky nail. It was almost funny how much he'd looked like a curious four-year-old in that moment. She'd thought that he was just surveying her, making sure that she was outwardly fit to perform the task at hand. Now she suspected that his attentive stare was owed more to his bizarre and frankly adorable fondness for classic movies. Or maybe he was looking at her like that because it might have been the last time he saw her alive. She swallowed the dry lump that formed in her throat at the thought, wishing suddenly that she had stared at him good, too.

The though was interrupted by his voice then. "Gretch?"

She sighed and leaned back in her seat. "Yeah, Michael?"

He was quiet for a moment before he piped up again. "I, er..."

"Michael, what is it?" she said sleepily. She was starting to feel like she was being crushed under the weight of the task. A task that she had chosen to take on.

"I need you to...I need for you to be safe, sweetheart," he said slowly and with a great amount of uncertainty. Anyone would have thought that he'd just asked her some impossible favor.

"You too, Michael," she whispered.

...

Trevor looked around the interior of the van curiously. It was filled to the gills with techy shit of every stripe. He didn't know what in the hell most of it was even though he could fly a plane blindfolded. Lester was idly tapping at a keyboard, studying some kind of module and gnawing on a thumbnail. Franklin was keeping a watchful eye on another monitor, checking for suspicious heat signatures inside the compound.

He turned to Michael, who was seated on a bench, hunched over, gloved hands clasped together. He stared at the floor absently and Trevor thought he might be praying or some shit.

"Mikey, get your head in the game. Your little nymphette should be in position any minute." Trevor had surprisingly and disappointingly soaked up the shitty, morose mood of his companions in the preceding hour, which pissed him off and made him itchy. He didn't fucking like it. Franklin had been pretty open in his objection to placing Gretchen in these circumstances because of the unwelcome _ethics_ that he'd been plagued with of late. Lester was finally feeling guilty about exploiting a female- though, this was slightly different than spying on naked sorority girls. It was all too obvious why it was bothering Michael. And now they'd passed their stupid hangups onto Trevor, who was waiting in the wings for when he could blow into Daschell's estate and fuck shit up.

As the minutes passed, Trevor's own niggling on the rightness of sending their people-pleasing little intern into the line of fire starting getting to him. He gritted his teeth, letting the smell of guilt fill his nostrils. If he was being honest with himself, his ass was still a little chapped about her running away from him and ultimately back into Michael's talons. She had gifted him- or maybe cursed would be more accurate- with some perspective on some...things that he'd disclosed to her the night before she left his trailer.

He wasn't even that drunk when he'd revealed to her the exact moment when he believed that he'd lost his last scrap of innocence. She was seated on the floor of the trailer with her knees pulled up to her chest. He told her about when he was a kid and he woke up that night and couldn't find his mom to tell her that the walls were breathing and that everything was shrinking and then dilating, even his own body parts, and then his ears filled with that loud whooshing sound that made him think the world was imploding on him. He'd never been that scared in his life. Still hadn't, even with bullets whizzing by his head and cops chasing him with their cherries and berries on, trying to capture him and throw him in the clink again. Compared to whatever fucking rabbit hole he'd fallen into that night when he was just nine or ten, those things were a trip to the candy store.

Gretchen had tented her fingers at him, but not in a shitty, pretentious way. Her face had been soft and she just listened to him tell her that even though he went to school the next day and he didn't set the shopping mall alight until fourish years later, he was sure that it'd started that night that he woke up to a bad, drugless trip.

When she was sure that he was done speaking, she spoke up herself. "That used to happen to me when I was a kid."

He didn't know what kind of look he was giving her but her countenance became weirdly apologetic all of a sudden, her mouth hanging open for words that didn't come until she shook off whatever was eating her. "I, er...I would wake up sometimes and my legs would feel like they were the size of tree trunks and the air sounded like it was...being pushed through an enormous PA system..." she said, trailing off. It was like she was stupefied by her own memory. "One time when it happened, I stepped on a bouncy ball I'd left on my floor and I thought I was on a boulder."

"No shit," he replied flatly, dazed by the familiarity.

She began rocking from side to side. "I heard that it's really common with kids. A type of seizure or something."

Trevor let that sink in for a minute, taking another slug of his beer. "So you're telling me that I didn't blow a fuse? That my soul just committed suicide spontaneously?"

She stopped rocking and looked up at him with enormous eyes for a minute before she stood and walked slowly to the couch and took a seat next to him. She fidgeted for a minute before she...Before she pulled him into the single most awkward hug that he'd ever experienced. He didn't know what to do with that. He just kind of froze while she clumsily tried to walk her fingers further up his shoulder, which was a little too far for her little arms to reach. He could feel her nose bent sideways into his bicep.

It struck him a little funny then that under different circumstances, he might have taken advantage of the situation and made a play for her inner thigh. Hell, she still smelled good even though she hadn't showered in a while and her wide, full mouth looked pah-retty inviting. But she wasn't trying to get a sexual reaction out of him. She was trying to comfort him. For real.

She must have felt him go rigid because she released him after only a moment. Her eye ticked and she brushed her dirty hair out of her face. "I'm sorry," she mumbled through barely-moving lips while avoiding his eyes.

"It's fine," he said, though even to his own ears, it sounded more like a question.

"I just-I..." she stammered before taking a deep breath. "I don't think your soul is dead."

"Oh?" he said through a snort, maybe a little too sarcastically. "What do you think, then, doctor?"

She started to shrug and then stopped herself, probably sensing that, _yeah, she'd cashed in the **uncertainty**_ _chip when she'd decided it was a good idea to touch him._ The woman was about two beats off when it came to her own self interests.

"I just...I think life and people and things can get real shitty and when you don't know how to lie to yourself, you have to leaven your existence..."

 _"Leaven your existence?"_ he recited back incredulously. "Jesus, Gretchen, what kind of self-help bullshit is that..."

She gaped back at him, making a little a breathy noise at the back of her throat, trying to defend herself. She pursed her lips together and scrunched her eyes shut. It was cute, really. She didn't seem to give a flying fuck that when she didn't have silver on her tongue, she was pretty much constantly tripping over herself. It was pretty endearing, but also totally frustrating. Because he knew that if she'd just quit trying to _fix_ herself the way he had done so, so many years ago, she wouldn't be so silly. She finally found her words again and she delivered them rapidly and robotically. "I mean that it's easier to just believe that you're a bad person or that you don't have a soul than it is to admit to yourself that you got the opposite of the lottery when you were born, Trevor."

She opened her eyes but didn't look at him but now it looked like it was more out of frustration than embarrassment. Trevor pondered what she said for a minute, but not too much. He didn't actually want to get into some kind of existential tango with himself. He was just buzzed and wanted someone to listen to him without calling him a psycho or agreeing with him to save their own skin. And she did that. So, he got what he wanted.

He pinched her arm, inciting her to look at him again.

"You know what, Gretchy girl. I'm going to spare you the details of my nasty deeds because if you believe even an ounce of what you're saying, I don't wanna be the one to sully that."

"Okay," she said skeptically, cocking an eyebrow and smirking at him. He handed her the T.V. remote.

"I'll let you pick tonight."

The memory flickered away from him as Trevor gave another round-robin look at Michael, Franklin, and Lester. So, maybe they were all justified in feeling like steaming sacks of shit right now. It didn't matter. They had a job to do. And that job was keeping that little dingbat alive for another day. So she could keep running around with her adorable little pie in the sky notions until the day her silly ass met its demise at the bottom of an uncovered manhole. 

"There she is," Franklin said pointing to the monitor he was staring at and putting on a pair of headphones.

Trevor and Michael both looked up to see what he was gesturing to. A heat signature that bore a striking resemblance to the symbol on a women's room door, walking toward another, more ominous figure.

"We fittin' to do this thing?" Franklin asked.

Trevor narrowed his eyes at the screen.

"You bet your ass we are, Franky boy."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so two more chapters most likely. I tried to get everything into this one but it just didn't make sense to do it that way because it ran away with me, so instead I'll place all the action into the next chapter. I hope you enjoyed this one anyway. I had a little fun with it when I wasn't tearing my hair out and agonizing over details.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, fwends. I'm sorry it took me so long to update. My life has changed a little bit, so things is cray. But I hope that I wasn't gone long enough for you to lose interest. Because you're all the best, I tell you what! Ahem, anyway, this bitch is 8700 words long, so get yourself a snack and a bevvie before you sit down to read :)

Gretchen stood in what felt like a tomb, only slightly relieved that when she'd arrived, instead of being met by a security guard eager to find the gun on her person, she was led into the house by a personal attendant. The dining room was entirely out of place when the rest of the house was taken into account. Where the rest of it was obnoxiously chrome-shiny and modern, this one was all mahogany. It smelled like cigars and man musk. It reminded Gretchen of what you might find on the inside of a trans-Atlantic luxury liner. That thought turned her stomach. Because while they were still on land, it didn't seem altogether implausible that the fault might open up and sink them into the ground by the time this whole thing was through.

"Ah, Elise," came Wallace's voice from the doorway.

Gretchen turned around to see him standing there, looking as dapper as could be in a smart-looking suit, the top of his Oxford cloth shirt unuttoned. Like he was trying to subtract fifteen odd years from his appearance by looking swanky. He took her in, too. And while it shouldn't have surprised her when he made a swift play for her spot near the table, it did.

He strode over to her like he was on a moving walkway that was only accessible to his feet, stopping short of colliding into her. His eyes were like shale in the dimness of the room. She could smell the sickly sweetness of his breath coming through his nose, all heavy and a little choppy. He looked her up and down with a gaze that was at once pillaging and deliberate. 

"I like the dress," he said gently in a glottal register. "I'm glad you heeded my advice..."

"Request," she breathed back at him. She was glad that she hadn't said _demand_ instead.

"My request," he said through a growing grin. "You filled my request. I like that," he said jauntily. "Have a seat, Elise."

She dutifully took a seat at the long table, right next to the head of it, where she imagined he intended to sit. King of the castle and that. She had to stifle a flinch when he reached across her to grab a bottle of wine.

_Drink one glass and not a drop more, but only if he opens it in front of you._

Wallace worked the corkscrew into the top of the bottle and pulled it out seamlessly, filling the glass in front of her before he filled his own. When his glass was full, he took a seat and raised it at her.

"To new heights," he toasted.

"New heights?" she parroted back at him. Before she could wrap her head around what he meant by that, he clinked his glass against her and took a sip. She didn't know what else to do in her befuddlement, so she simply sipped in kind.

"Elise," he began before he ran his hands down his pant legs, smoothing them down, staring into his lap. "I cannot tell you how pleased I am that you agreed to come tonight."

His voice was partly serious and, more unnervingly, amorous. Unnerving because Gretchen suddenly felt like she'd caught him with his pants down. She knew damn well what was going to go down over the next couple of hours, give or take, and here he was being almost vulnerable with her.

She forced a warm smile. "You were pretty insistent, Wallace," she said, trying to sound gracious.

"Was I?" he asked pointedly.

She quickly covered her tracks. "But I'm glad you asked me over."

His lips were parted slightly as he studied her face with an uncomfortably long and hard stare. "I don't do this with everyone that works for me."

Gretchen took another sip of her wine, almost choking on the tannins. She gingerly wiped a bit of dribble off of her bottom lip. "No?" she asked stupidly. She couldn't tell if he was trying to make her feel special or grateful.

"Elise, you and I have a very _special_ working relationship," he began without missing a beat. He'd no doubt sensed her discomfort, but he was going to go ahead and keep grooming her anyway. He leaned in farther, and Gretchen couldn't help but note how the soft lighting in this room was making the silver hairs on his chest appear almost incandescent. It was something she could fixate on. "You've touched me. Both literally and figuratively."

She straightened up in her seat, deciding suddenly that she didn't want to fixate on _any_ part of his body. The worst part of it was that she didn't know if it was just her or if that last sentence sounded especially hackneyed. She wanted a witness all of a sudden. That was a hacky thing to say, right? Anyone?

"It's my job, Wallace. I finished massage school when I was twenty and I would have figured out by now if that was the wrong move," she said, absently rattling off the real Elise's credentials, hoping that she could pick up some thread and save herself without being too off-putting nor so warm as to find him stroking her thigh. Holy fuck. He was stroking her thigh, now. Well, touching her knee actually, but his thumb was trembling like it was ready to commence the stroking function.

His eyes were trailing down her face, down her neck, her cleavage, traveling down to where he was resting his hand. "You have a gift, young lady. That's not lost on me."

Gretchen's attentions were torn. This guy was touching her gams now. Also, she did not have a gift. She didn't even have any training in her supposed area of expertise. Also, she did not get signed up to get sexed by a government/privately-sanctioned warlord. She was just there for distraction. And it looked like she was doing _that_ far too well. She cleared her throat.

"So...Read any good books lately?" she asked.

...

Daschell had lied to Gretchen and by lying to Gretchen, he had also lied to Michael, which wasn't terribly surprising, but he was no less miffed by the fact that there were three guards on duty around the perimeter of Daschells house, plus whomever was working undercover as a footman or kitchen staff.

These guys were supposed to have the night off. Michael had admired how Gretchen had navigated that sticky little nugget, said nugget being the problematic security detail that Daschell kept around him at all times. It was ridiculous, but he was taking the deception personally. She'd told Daschell that it made her uncomfortable and implied heavily that if he had any hope of getting into her skivvies, that he would need to shake the guards. And he hadn't upheld that part of the bargain, and now Michael was actively trying to tune out what was coming through his earpiece. The sly seduction of his lover-turned-faux-lifestyle-guru.

 _"I don't get to show many people my book collection,"_ cooed Daschell over Michael's earpiece.

Guard number one, whose post was on the south-east corner of the estate would be easy enough.

 _"Wow, is this a first edition?"_ came Gretchen's voice over the earpiece as Michael rushed the guard from behind and cold-cocked him. This guard was built for this work. Michael suppressed a grunt as he took him under the arms and shoved him into a tiny, unlit enclave surrounded by foliage.

He kept his back to the wall as he moved to the next survey point, next to a superfluous veranda at the center of this side of the house. His thoughts kept flickering in and out, racing at inopportune times. Flashing across his brain like a sheet undulating under a projected image. He should have just arranged for Gretchen to take Wallace out. It would have been simple enough. They could have extracted her.

That had been Trevor's suggestion in the planning phases, but at the forefront of Michael's mind, there had been a pronounced nagging that told him he didn't want Gretchen to get blood on her hands. It would have scarred her. Up to this point, they'd worked around her culpability by utilizing her understanding that these guys meant business, that if she could turn the other cheek for a little while, she might get away relatively unscathed and with minimal visits to a shrink to cope with her guilt. But Michael had been quietly contemplating a more immediate possibility: that when this was all over, she might tip the other way. She might disappear again, start using, and that there was no way that he would be able to go door to door through all the newfangled opium dens in the city looking for his relapsed sweetheart that he'd sent to do his bidding.

He knew that now wasn't exactly the best time to do have doubts. She was already in the belly of the beast, and they couldn't go changing their plan now. He leaned over and looked to his three. He could see a distant shadow lurching around out back.

"T, are you in position?"

...

 "Just about," Trevor crooned as he scissor kicked his way across the north side of the perimeter, stopping short of the horizontal sliding half-vent window that led the the basement.

_"Watch it, T. There are two guards over here. I'd wager there's at least one on your six."_

As though Michael was narrating their list of liabilities, he turned to see a corn-fed linebacker goosestepping along the side of the wall. What in the fuck? These guys weren't supposed to be invited to this party. With the slick, lithe precision of an adolescent boy with no impulse control or sense of his own mortality, he lurched forward and caught _Biff_ by the knees, sending him crashing backward.

Of course, since Merryweather guards were trained to be killing machines, the kid raised his weapon to Trevor's face. Trevor, however, was _born_ a killing machine, and so he grabbed the barrel of the standard-issue boomstick trained at his head and snatched it away, crushing the young buck's nose with the butt of his own gun. It made a satisfying crunch as he fell into unconsciousness.

Trevor double-tapped the guy by kicking him in the head before he moved him out of the purview of the spotlights fixed to the top of the fence. _Sweet dreams._   _I'll make sure your corpse makes it back to Oklahoma._

"Mikey, I thought you said there wan't gonna be any guards at this function," Trevor seethed.

 _"I didn't give you any guarantees,"_ Michael replied in his characteristic defensive tone. Fucking typical. _"Just get in there, I'll clear the perimeter."_

Trevor huffed in frustration as he skulked toward the window. The house must have been older than its shiny exterior would suggest, as he easily wiggled the fiberglass window frame loose enough to slide through. It was kind of a significant design flaw for a guy who had to have been spending a significant portion of his adjusted gross income on making sure that nobody breathed on him wrong.

He slid in feet-first. It was a tight fit, but he was in. He looked around the basement. It smelled like lye or something. The ventilation was outdated, that's for sure. There were hampers on wheels all over the place. How much fuckin' laundry could one guy generate? Trevor only delegated laundry duties to Ron once a month or so. He'd have to remember to remind Ron how easy he had it when he saw him next.

It didn't take much poking around to find the chute that Gretchen had spoke of. He poked his head into the opening and surveyed the inside, eyeballing it to see if his imposing frame in excess of six feet would be able to make it up without getting stuck. He didn't tell a lot of people this, but claustrophobia was his second most severe phobia after clowns, which was tied with being alone for more than two days at a time. He may or may not have disclosed these things to Gretchen, and he wondered then if she had suggested this extraction method to get back at him for making her drink herself into a crying mess that one time. So touchy.

He took a deep breath and crawled in, panicking immediately when his ankle became hooked on the lip of the thing. Of course, he had been poised to get himself stuck in his hyper-vigilant claustrophobic state, quickly dislodging his ankle and regaining his bearings. He made a terrible racket doing so, and then another when he chuckled darkly at himself. He grabbed a pulley and braced his feet and back against the sides, pulling himself up the chute until he found a rhythm as he spider-climbed up the chute.  _You better thank me for this later, Gretchy girl._

...

"Are my eyes playin' tricks on me or is he touchin' her a little too fuckin' much?" Franklin asked Lester or himself or the air.

Lester narrowed his eyes at the screen, watching as the heat signatures ebbed in and out of one another, becoming indistinguishable at times. He sighed and pulled his glasses down the bridge of his nose to squeeze it.

"I don't think you're hallucinating, Franklin," Lester said. The war-loving fuck seemed to be compulsively feeding her pickup lines once every couple of minutes. She'd been in there for about an hour now, politely brushing off his advances and trying with all her might to get him to talk about his _stuff._ God knew he had enough of it.

Lester had spent the past several weeks slowing his rotation of outfits for want of a laundress, eating takeout every day, and feeling more than a little bit shitty about the position he'd landed his one-time gal Friday in. The less he saw her, the worse he felt about it. She'd slipped into a completely different role than before, waltzing into his house like one of his contractors, imbibing his instructions, and leaving with little ceremony. She didn't bring him unsolicited plants or his prescriptions or snappy comebacks before she cowed to his demands. She just did what he wanted now. And it sucked. 

 _"I don't know anything about classic jazz or modern jazz or..."_ Gretchen said in the slightly altered vocal register she'd adopted to play Elise.

That was another thing. Why hadn't she come to him for a new identity? Sure, he would have told Michael right away if only to save his own skin, but still. She hadn't even asked. If the woman that changed his sheets and stuck a peak flow meter into his mouth several times a day didn't trust him to ply his trade, then he was in a bad way.

_"Well I'm something of a jazz enthusiast. I have about a hundred and seventy first-pressings from 1923 onward..."_

Gretchen had been quiet over dinner while Daschell prattled on quietly about what he had in store for her, both for the evening and for her fake career. It really burned Lester's ass that this son of a bitch thought that he had the right to take it upon himself to lay down the blueprints for the rest of her tenure with him. He couldn't help but find some satisfaction in the fact that he would be dead shortly. 

 "She's holdin' up the front pretty good. She don't sound nervous," Franklin mused.

"Yeah," Lester said absently. "Let's hope she keeps it up." He glanced at the clock. Trevor and Michael would be inside by now. They'd given themselves a three and a half hour window to ensure that the security system would be down for the overhaul before the curtain came down on them. But Gretchen had made them promise that they wouldn't keep her in there for that long, her indicting gaze lingering extra long on Lester, who had orchestrated the nitty gritty of the whole thing. He'd looked her in the eye and promised not to leave her in there long enough to make her more vulnerable than she needed to be.

As he watched Gretchen's heat signature moving back and forth and cocking her hip like she often did, his thoughts drifted to her first week as his care attendant. How she vacillated between tiptoeing around him and giving him what-for when he pitched her too much shit. 

On the fourth day, a Thursday, he'd been wheeling around behind her, micromanaging her by doing little more than telling her that everything she was doing was wrong. She was folding his clothes wrong, she was doing the dishes wrong, she was dusting the windowsill wrong, and she had given him his steroid too early in the day. The only thing he hadn't complained about was the way she scrubbed the floor, but that was only because he was enjoying the view too much.  

At some point, toward the end of the day, the tension reached a fever pitch. The past week, all he'd been trying to do was to get her to quit and it wasn't sinking in for her, so he'd had to resort to tormenting her. He smashed his coffee pot right after she pulled dinner out of the oven, mere minutes before she was set to leave. She'd looked up at him with a look of understated shock that quickly faded into an equally understated scowl. Her eyes didn't leave his as she knelt down on the floor, picking up every big shard of glass and sweeping up the rest, before standing and flicking off the errant glass dust that was left on her hands.

She would have been well within her right to leave it there, forcing him to navigate the glass to get a drink of water until she came in for her shift the next morning. But she didn't. Either because she couldn't or because she wanted to show him that he couldn't break her. When she was done cleaning up the glass, he followed her into the living room and watched her take her purse from the credenza. Before she left, she turned to him.

"Same time tomorrow, _Smash?"_ she'd said, cool as a cucumber and with a cock of her eyebrow before shutting the door behind her.

She'd won that round and left him mildly humiliated and defeated. But if he'd broken her then, where would that had left them? Lester didn't believe in fate. He believed in hard science and chance and the cruelty of the universe's randomness. But thinking back on that day, about her arrogant goodbye and the less-than-clever but effectively concise nickname she'd given him, he couldn't help but feel like there were pieces coming together. For better or worse.

"Light a fire under M and T's asses. This is taking too long," he told Franklin.

...

The small kitchen crew was diligently loading dishes into an industrial sized dishwasher and mopping up the floor as Michael slinked past. He'd taken out three more guards outside, stashing their mortal coils in a drainage ditch along the edge of the property before he'd crept in the back door.

He moved briskly through the corridors, until he found the dining area, stationing himself in a totally unnecessary reading nook down the hall, waiting for Trevor's signal that he was in. He closed his eyes and listened. He could hear some light classical music wafting from under the door of the room that currently housed Gretchen and Daschell. Between that and his earpiece, the sounds inundating his ears with vulgar politeness created an eerie effect akin to what you would hear if you called into a radio station while you were listening to that radio station over your speakers.

The eeriest part was most certainly the soft sound of Wallace Daschell trying to ply his greenhorn into doing things that Michael couldn't stomach thinking about. Occasionally, he could hear Gretchen's inaudible responses. She was doing good, mirroring Daschell's tone, keeping her cool, at least from the sound of it.

He swallowed hard and waited for Trevor to come in on the other channel, listening keenly for anything amiss, wishing that Daschell would quit trying to impress Gretchen with his shitty music collection. If Michael knew anything about the May-December seduction game, it was that these days, women that were apt to let themselves be seduced by substantially older men couldn't be wheedled into it with the smell of cedar musk and pipe tobacco and a short-course on  _classic jazz._ Jesus Christ. 

Sure, she hadn't gone native on being seduced by sad older men, her relationship with Michael notwithstanding. But sweet Christ, it's like Daschell wasn't even trying to adapt his game to today's generally accepted sleaze-schematic. You had to meet them more than half-way, with a few light jabs about how entitled they were. Then you had to let it roll off your back when they dated you beyond your years by asking you if Woodstock and Altamont were funner than Coachella.

Michael found himself ashamed that he'd become so familiar with that game, and of course his Gretchen wasn't some generic valley girl trying to have a life experience with an older man. She hadn't become attracted to him because he was seasoned and novel, she was attracted to him because...Huh. Well, he wasn't perfectly sure why she'd kissed him that first night. He didn't know where the sexual tension that led to that first night and then played into the greater narrative of their affair had come from. It was striking him now that they couldn't have come from more different worlds. That they'd been thrust together, but that they would have probably never given one another more than a passing glance if they'd been in the same coffee shop as opposed to Lester's orbit.

The young women that caught his attention before he came along were very much a part of the cliche that he'd become as he approached his middle age. They were drenched in Vinewood fakery, veritable goddesses at the altars of youth and beauty that this town so worshiped. Long hair, even tans, fake nails, and leather bustiers if he was feeling feisty that night.

And then there was the conundrum with a heartbeat that was Gretchen. The bizarre product of a union between a white trash criminal that looked the way axle grease smelled and the most unfortunate European beauty queen to ever set foot stateside. Gretchen, who drowned herself in grungewear that stopped two steps short of being chic. Who broke the L.S. mold with the body that he loved: broad shoulders, smallish breasts that tricked the eye into thinking that they were fuller than they were, soft hips, and strong legs. A new school rendering of Botticelli's Venus, born out of a hatchback instead of a scallop shell, and who couldn't sit still long enough to perfect a Contrapposto pose. 

Who the hell would have known what to do with someone like her? There was a reason that Michael and his ilk gravitated toward the basic beauties of North L.S. They were only complicated enough to make the chase fun. Not enough to make a game of guessing what they wanted. Or needed. And they hadn't yet fallen far enough to make themselves that complicated. Gretchen had fallen, picked herself up, and started a whole new kind of free-fall that had landed her here.

Well, fuck. Right now wasn't really a terrific time to contemplate what she'd seen in him. She didn't like surprises or danger. She just got swept into them and then tried to stay upright. That's all he knew. That and that he needed to get her the hell out of Daschell's house.

_"M, I'm in. I could use your help up here."_

Michael waited a minute to respond, listening for any dangerous rustling or shuffling of feet. "What? You have one job, T," he hissed.

_"Well, it's a big fuckin' job, and I need a safe cracker up here."_

"Fuck," Michael sighed.

He looked to the door to the dining room, his eyes settling at the crack at the bottom. There was an amber light coming out from under it. Two shadows passed by before he heard Gretchen laugh.

"Give me a minute."

...

There were two realities in this room. In Wallace's reality, Gretchen was Elise, and Elise was at ease, finally, acquiescing slowly to his carefully calculated attempt at wooing her. In Gretchen's reality, she was doing all she could not to tap her foot anxiously. They should have been here by now. It was only a matter of time before they ran out of things to talk about and then...Well, something was bound to happen.

"Come on, one more glass," Wallace practically scolded.

She shook her head. "I have to drive home, Wallace."

Even though she'd broken eye contact with him, she couldn't help but notice the glint in his eye. He tucked his bottom lip into his mouth and glared at her for a minute before he broke into a sharky smile. "I'm not going to make you knock back the whole bottle, little miss. But it's a fine vintage and I can't think of anyone I'd rather share it with."

She conjured a bluff, trying to match the toothiness of his smile. "That's not going to change my alcohol tolerance," she said, huffing out a laugh.

His mouth was hanging open as he chewed on her hubris. "Well, if it gets the better of you, you could always stay here."

She felt her smile fall away as she looked in his eyes to see if she could detect a joke behind it. "Er..."

"I wouldn't do anything unseemly, Elise, I assure you. Unless..."

Gretchen stood impulsively and began walking sideways, fiddling with the hair at the back of her neck. "Mr. Daschell," she whispered bashfully.

He stood, too. "Wallace," he reminded her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be too forward. It's just that we've been having such a lovely time."

It was at that moment that Gretchen, without meaning to, began taking inventory of the past couple of hours. She thought that she'd put up plenty of walls, supplementing the distance with a well-placed laugh and reciprocating conversation where it was needed. Had he really thought that it had gone well enough for him to proposition her? Surely, he had more propriety than that.

"Yes, _Wallace,_ it's been really nice-"

 _"But,"_ he lilted at her.

"But I work for you and I take my job very seriously. It's not ethical or professional to cross that line with someone that I'm working with- that I'm _treating._ "

Wallace kept walking closer to her, dipping his neck down to force her to look at him, though her face was cast down. "I know you're a professional," he said with the kind of condescension that was beneath even children. "I'm not trying to jeopardize your career, Elise. But I would hope by now that it would have become clear to you that I'm interested in more than hot stones and supplements. Besides, you're not a doctor. You're not breaking the Hippocratic oath."

Gretchen finally looked at him since it was obvious that he was going to compel her to look at him anyway. "It has nothing to do with Hippocrates. It's not right, Wallace," she told him firmly.

With that his shoulders relaxed. He looked off to the side, considering what she told him. He nodded at whatever conclusion he'd come to in his own mind, shifting his gaze back to her. "If that's what you want, Elise, I respect that."

Her stomach unknotted itself slowly, tentatively. She was looking for a sign of deception, but got a warm smile from him instead.

"You're a tougher nut than I though, young lady. I must say..."

"It's not like that. I told you, I just take my job seriously. It's important to me."

"And I told _you_ that's respectable."

"So...Are we cool?"

He lifted a thick eyebrow at her and smiled slyly, his hands in his pockets. "Yeah. We're _cool."_

"Good." She inhaled deeply and gave a silent prayer to nothing in particular that he hadn't tried to justify that aggressive come-on by referencing her dress or something.

He pulled a hand out of his pocket and lifted a finger in the air. "I do have one request, though."

"What's that?"

"I want to dance with you."

...

Trevor was holding a flashlight on the safe with one hand and rifling through a desk drawer with another.

"Keep it steady, T," Michael barked as he worked on the safe.

"This is a time sensitive operation, Porkchop. If you ain't forgot, your girlfriend's alone down there with a rich and powerful psycho."

Michael gritted his teeth, trying to hold his focus on the safe. "I haven't forgotten that, _T,"_ he growled.

The safe was confusing. It kind of felt like a waste of time. He didn't know why Daschell would keep anything of import in a safe that didn't have some kind of voice recognition or fingerprint scanner. While he wasn't entirely sure anything like that existed yet, it certainly seemed like something this guy would have on hand. Finally, after five minutes of noodling with the fucker under Trevor's shaky flashlight, he got it open, dragging the door open slowly.

"Drawers are empty," Trevor said.

"Bring the light over here," Michael said.

Trevor abided, leaning down and shining the light into the cavernous ground safe. Michael felt around the safe, pulling out thick envelopes and turning up nothing but cash (probably set aside for a hasty retreat from U.S. soil) and receipts. He couldn't find any information pertinent to their _dissidence._ He kept groping around, pulling out more stacks until he felt something in the corner of the safe.  
It was a little bigger than a cigarette case. He pulled it out and examined it. It was a black box. He turned it over in his hands.

"What is it?" Trevor asked.

Michael looked at him with what must have been a keen look. "It's an external hard drive."

"That's coming with us," Trevor said as if it wasn't obvious.

They knew that the information that Daschell had on them, contrary to common sense, would not be diffuse. It wouldn't be spread out among a bunch of people to mitigate liability, because if a lot of people had their hands on it, they could also become aware of the specifics of Merryweather's hand in creating all the bullshit. Nobody in their right mind thought that Merryweather was above board in their operations, but all it would take would be one little intern with a conscience to blow the whistle and _bam._ The plug would be pulled on stateside operations yet again. Merryweather couldn't afford a hit like that.

 _"M,"_ came Franklin's voice. 

"What's up, F?"

_"You done in there or what? We saw you moved away from your position."_

"T needed my help."

_"L wants you to fix the thing he gave T onto Daschell's computer and then get back downstairs."_

"What thing?" Michael asked looking to Trevor, who was groping around his body searching for something. He finally reached into an inside pocket in his jacket, pulling out something long and fiberglass.

"This thing," Trevor said before turning around and fiddling with it before he stuck it to the computer tower. "It's done."

_"We lost Gretchen's heat signature a few minutes ago."_

"Why the fuck didn't you tell me that sooner!"

_"'Cause we lost yours too, man. Just fuckin' get down there!"_

Michael switched the channel on his headset but all he could hear was music and loud, rhythmic whooshing sounds over a horribly distorted male voice.

...

Gretchen didn't want to dance with Daschell at all, but she especially didn't want to dance to bossa nova or smooth jazz. It felt extra contrived for some reason. So Wallace turned on the radio and turned it up loud, probably figuring that Elise got her kicks from dancing with strangers in loud night clubs and hoping to simulate the experience. Now he was holding her deadly tight while some slow jam indie rock song played on the radio. She didn't know what to do with her hands since shoving him away wasn't an option.

For some reason, she kept thinking about what it was that he did for a living, how he made his money. It was a special kind of torture that she'd devised for herself to augment the already-torturous feeling of his hands on her back and the dread at the prospect of him possibly discovering the gun fixed to her hip. Maybe he'd think it was an abnormal growth of some kind and let her go.

"There's no need to be so squirrelly," he admonished.

Gretchen tried to keep her breathing even, even though it was barely coming out at all. "I'm not being squirrelly," she said defensively.

He moved one of his hands from her back and cupped her chin. "But you're used to being the one that does all the touching."

"Right," she said, loosening her grip on his arms and hoping like hell that he didn't hear her voice shake. "I just-"

"Shh." Daschell pulled her in tighter and kept looking down into her face. That saccharine smell of nose breath was making her nauseated. She tried turning her head, but it was like their bodies were canyons and his breath was a westerly wind blowing through the crevasse and back up into her face. It smelt like...molasses or something. Why did his nose breath smell like molasses?

Each time she felt his pelvis moving in closer to her, she scooched back, desperate to keep him from discovering the gun. Finally, all that see-sawing forced her to put her head on his shoulder, both because it was the only way to keep their bodies apart and because she was certain that by now, her face was betraying her panic. She felt angry at Michael all of a sudden, because he wasn't here. He wasn't the one holding her. It was Daschell. And where Daschell had only been a loose end before, a target, now he was her enemy- invading her space and imposing his body on hers.

Something about this didn't feel right. It didn't feel sexual. It didn't feel like his insistence on this intimate contact was his horniness coming in like a dark horse to try and force her to reconsider sleeping with him. This felt like...This felt like the kind of tactic that Merryweather might use on a suspect.

Gretchen suddenly felt her sense of self slipping away. All that resistance that she'd been showing up to this point. She didn't know how, but she knew that she'd lost some control, and something told her that now it was time to lean into it. She looked up at Daschell, who stared back at her with some kind of twisted look of triumph that was also contaminated with some childish or animalistic fascination. His face was so close to hers. It was time to lean in. Pretend that this was okay. Fake like this was where she wanted to be. A sterile surrender.

"Someone's coming around," he sing-songed to her.

"No, I-"

"Ah!" he interrupted, hoisting her weightless body up to his. His arms were under hers now. "Don't ruin this."

He rocked her softly as waves of dread bobbed up and down in the center of her body. He tucked her hair behind her ear and it felt like a cruel, sloppy imitation of how Michael did it, the way that it felt good. Even so, the dread was falling away. She was suddenly convinced that Wallace Daschell was not merely a war-profiteer, but also a vampire lord or some kind of _djinn_ preparing to eat her soul.

"My one of a kind," he whispered to the room. When he kissed her, the friction that their mouths made felt like hot rubber on coarse-grain rock. He didn't slip her the tongue because this was most definitely not sexual. It had zero to do with sex. She knew it. This was validation he was looking for. Tender validation for all the garbage that he'd sent out into the world with his armed foot-soldier automotons. And she wasn't one of a kind. She was just there. Unfortunately.

He groped at her shoulders and back and wound his fingers into her hair before he pulled away and sucked in a breath. Her red lipstick was smeared across his mouth like a Chelsea grin. That look of triumph flickered across his face for another split second before it fell away slowly. He stuck his hand under her skirt and then she knew...She knew that she had felt it. The gun.

He yanked it off of her, no doubt taking some skin with it. He released her to take it in both his hands and study it before he looked up at her with a sharp, confused nuisance playing behind his eyes, rendered almost cartoonish by the smear of lipstick on his mouth.

"What have you done, Elise?"

Gretchen's vision began to go wild, the soft lights tunneling into her skull as her breath quickened. "I haven't done anything-"

"Shut up!"

He looked down at the gun again before he strode over to her and took her tiny neck in his hand, which seemed to have grown ten sizes. He was panting in time with Gretchen's hyperventilation, both of them still but for their rapid breathing. "Wallace," she choked out, gripping his forearm with both her hands.

"Who sent you, Elise? That is your name, right? Elise?"

She was hardly a match for a former commando. She was keenly aware of this now. "Nobody," she said through strained vocal chords. She thought he would crush her windpipe, but suddenly, he shoved her away. She stumbled sideways, her body automatically contending with her high-heeled feet to keep her upright. She coughed and huffed for a moment sucking in dry air and saliva. When she looked back up at him, he was staring at the gun again. The confusion on his face had departed, and was now replaced with a steely resignation.

Gretchen looked between him and the gun with bated breath. All she could do was wait to see what he would do. And she didn't have to wait long. He raised that canon at her and looked at her almost-apologetically. Without thinking she turned her back to run, but didn't make it a step before he fired.

...

Michael was half-way down the stairs when he heard the shots ring out. Two in rapid succession. He froze and looked at Trevor for a split second before he bolted down the stairs, two at a time. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the meager kitchen staff making haste toward the front door, screaming, all of them. When he got to the huge, wooden double-doors and tried the handle, he saw that they were locked. He didn't waste any time boaring into it with his body. Trevor was at his side then, the two of them shoving their bodies into the door like a discordant battering ram.

When they got the door opened, they saw Daschell first, standing disheveled with his arm limp at his side, gun in hand. He looked up at them like a zombie before he trained the gun at them. Trevor put a bullet in Daschell's shoulder and then his chest before he rushed him to make sure that there weren't any latent combat instincts ready to kick in. Michael barely had time to register that scene before he looked to his left.

He almost didn't see her. It was so dark in this room that her dress blended in with the rug. But then his mind took it in. The foreshortened white limbs that were her legs, horribly contorted on the floor. Her neck and upper back were visible, too. He ran to her and knelt down beside her. Her body was posed like a dead bug. He dropped to his knees beside her.

The first thing that he noticed was the growing wet spots of maroon on the back of her dress. And then he pulled her upper body into his lap and she made a strained but faint huff.

"No, no, no, no..." he whined miserably.

He rolled her face up to look at him. Her skin was cold and her breathing, while there, was shallow. She had a look of muted fright and confusion as her eyes traveled around. Her lipstick was smeared all over her mouth, which was opening and closing as though she were trying to say something, but then it looked more like she was trying to unlock her mouth from the tackiness of the saliva that pooled on the sides.

"Mikey!" Trevor yelled. He ignored him.

"Gretch...Baby," he panted.

She finally looked him right in the eye with a pained look on her face, oily little tears eeking out the bottoms of them. She shook her head at him slowly before she went limp.

"Michael, get her the fuck out of here," Trevor warned him as he walked toward the two of them on the floor. Michael instinctively pulled her closer, feeling as though their space was being invaded. "This is outside of your fuckin' pay scale, buddy. She's gonna bleed out. Get her to the hospital, I'll stay here."

Michael looked up at Trevor who had an uncharacteristic timidity on his face, though not without an ounce of necessary rage. "I'll take care of this fuck, now go. Mount Zonah's the closest."

Michael's hesitation was owed to the fact that he had thought, somehow, that it wouldn't come to this. But he knew he couldn't spare another second. He hoisted Gretchen up into his arms and ran out of there.

...

Franklin was up front, having been appointed the official driver while Michael and Lester were in the back with Gretchen. Michael cradled her and held her forehead up so that they could keep her airway clear and monitor her breathing. Lester held his hands over the two wounds in her back. Wounds that were bleeding more than they should have for a small caliber handgun. All that blood was running out between his fingers in tiny rivulets.

"Michael, you're sure that he used the piece that you gave her?"

Michael was ignoring him, his attentions focused on Gretchen's face. She was still doing that strange thing with her mouth opening and closing it, except that now it looked more like she was talking to someone, but her eyes were closed. Her face just kept getting more pallid by the minute.

"Michael, she shouldn't be bleeding this much..."

"I know," Michael croaked back at him, eyes locked on her. The ride was quiet for a minute. They were still about ten minutes out from the hospital. Michael put his fingers on her neck again. "Her pulse keeps getting fainter, Lest." Michael's voice had never sounded that way before to Lester's ears. Kind of desperate and freaked out as opposed to cool and calculated or angry. It was making Lester scared, too.

"What's going on back there?" called Franklin.

Lester didn't know what to do to make this better. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. They were supposed to get to her before this happened, just like they'd promised. How in the hell did this happen? Lester's plans always went the way they were supposed to, barring  _operator error._ He looked at her with the same intense focus that Michael did. Looked at her face, at the strings of spit that kept falling out of her barely-moving mouth. Her face wasn't even the same color that it usually was. That peachy-bronze was totally white. It wouldn't be long before she started turning blue. He wished then that he could take back every mean thing that he had ever said to her. All the insults and the cruelty, even though she deserved it sometimes because she was a pain in the ass. She definitely didn't deserve to die in the back of a van.

Lester's next words came out robotically, the way they always did when he wanted to drive a point home. "Drive faster, Franklin."

...

First there were many hues of black and blue and grey that seemed to penetrate every sense, not just her vision. That weird twilight between awake and consciousness that gets blotted over by darkness. Then there was white. A white so white and warm, unlike anything she had ever seen. But there was nothing in between those things, somehow. There was a shadow of a tree, but it was Gretchen's shadow, too. And somehow, it clicked for her then. This was an in-between place.

She looked around. She was outside. By the ocean. She could hear the waves swelling in and out and she could feel the breeze. She was by the ocean. The pier! Yes, the pier! There was the ferris wheel and the roller coaster. She could smell funnel cake and hear seagulls. But it was empty. There was nobody else. She thought.

 _"Gekkie,"_ she heard someone say behind her.

She turned around and saw her. It was her mother. Her mother was _standing_ there. No wheelchair.

"Mama," Gretchen said.

Ilse beckoned for Gretchen to come to her with a flick of two fingers. She smiled warmly. Gretchen walked into her mom's arms. Her mom was standing. She'd forgotten how tall she was. The woman had a good five inches on her. And that hug! It was warm and smelled like wildflowers. Lemon-scented geraniums.

"Mama," she repeated. She looked around the pier again, at the emptiness. "What is this, mama?"

Ilse smiled at her and placed her glossy pink fingernail on her lip. "You know what it is, silly girl. I used to bring you here after we went and saw daddy."

"I know, but...There's nobody here." A calm fell over Gretchen. A hollow yet deeply-penetrating realization. "I'm dead, huh?"

"No, _gekkie._ At least not yet."

Gretchen looked up at her mother, who looped her arm around her shoulder and began walking her to the end of the pier. She didn't say anything then, which was fine by Gretchen. She looked out at that vast blue expanse, the way the sun glittered on the waves. It was such a familiar scene. They always got back to town from the ride up from Bolingbroke at the same time, and the changing seasons hardly registered in the sky.

"So, what do I do?" Gretchen asked Ilse when they reached the edge of the pier. She suddenly became aware of the feeling of tight fabric around her body. She looked down to see that she wasn't wearing the red dress anymore. She was wearing a novelty t-shirt from the pier. The kind they sold to tourists. And a pair of too-small red shorts. Well, _now_ they were too small. They had fit just fine when she'd worn them at thirteen years old. So had the shirt. She reached up and felt the sides of her head. Her hair was in little twin buns on either side of her head.

"Well, that's up to you, my girl," Ilse replied.

"What do you mean it's up to me?" asked Gretchen, suddenly a little bit agitated. "Are you even real?"

Ilse chuckled and leaned against the rail. "I might be. Or I might be a hallucination arbitrated by your memories and your oxygen-deprived brain."

Gretchen considered this for a moment and felt a smile flicker on her lips. "That doesn't sound like something you would say, mama. I think you're not real."

Ilse sighed, still smiling. She closed her eyes and seemed to savor the sun on her face. She inhaled deeply. "You think what you like, my love. You always did think for yourself. I never had to worry about that. I never got to tell you how much I appreciated that about you."

Gretchen followed her mother's gaze out to the waves and then snapped her head back to look at her mother. Just to test it. To see if her mother would morph into something else, like a monster or something.

"I think it wouldn't be so bad to stay here. I like it here with you. It's nice," Gretchen said matter-of-factly.

Ilse's smile faded and she looked at Gretchen with a kind of gentle sternness. Like she was assessing her statement to see if she meant it or not. "Gretchen, it's not such a flip decision. It's not as though we're talking about picking out curtains or something..."

"Okay, now I'm confused. _That_ sounds like something you would say."

Ilse chuckled through her nostrils again before she looked over her shoulder off in the distance. Gretchen stepped sideways to look at what it was she was looking at. She walked to the side of the lane, looking to where the lifeguard tower was. She squinted until she figured out what she was looking at. It was a person. A man. A man in a teal polo shirt and aviator sunglasses smoking a cigarette. It was Michael.

How had she forgotten about him so soon? She had forgotten what he meant to her and she had only been here for however many non-minutes because time must have meant nothing here. She watched him taking long pulls off of his smoke, staring at the water. He looked tired and defeated standing over there by himself, with the great big nothing of L.S. behind him, the skyscrapers and freeways all obscured by some kind of dreamy membrane at his back.

She sighed as she felt her mother put her hand on her shoulder, joining her at her side.

"I can't believe I forgot him so soon."

"You didn't forget him, duckling."

"I don't know what to do."

"Yes you do."

"Is it wrong for me to want to go back to him?" Gretchen croaked through a hard swallow. Her chest felt so tight all of a sudden.

Ilse leaned in close and whispered to her as though Michael would be able to hear them. "Right and wrong have nothing to do with it, silly."

"Do you think I should be with him?"

"It doesn't matter what I think. For all you know, anything I tell you is nothing more than a projection of your consciousness."

"What? You're my mother, of course it matters," Gretchen said. She felt like her throat was going to cave in.

"Whether or not I'm real, the only thing that matters is what you think is right, Gretchen. You'll never know what this is, but if I'm not real, you'll do what you want anyway and if I am real, you'll find a way to _justify_ doing what you think is right, regardless of what I tell you."

Gretchen turned to her mother, clutching her throat and chest now. "Mama, I can't breathe."

Ilse took her by the shoulders. "It's just a trach tube, baby."

"Huh?" Gretchen asked, confused. She was scared now. She thought nothing was supposed to hurt here.

"They're putting a trachea tube in your throat. You need to decide now."

"Mama," Gretchen wheezed.

Ilse leaned over and kissed Gretchen on the cheek. "It's okay, baby," she whispered.

Gretchen stared into her mother's beautiful face once more. "Okay," she wheezed out.

She turned around and got onto the railing of the pier. She felt her mother's hands steadying her as she looked at Michael again. She watched him turn his lit cigarette over in his fingers before he flicked it into the water. Gretchen felt that shuddering in her chest again. Like something was being shoved down there, steadily, slowly. Michael looked out at the horizon again before he straightened up, making like he was going to leave until he hesitated. He looked at Gretchen. He could see her, too. She watched him take his sunglasses off and stare at her. Like he was just beginning to recognize her, the way she had him. Slowly, like layers being pulled away.

After a moment, Michael went as still as a statue across the water. Gretchen took one last look at him as her breaths became more erratic. Took him in one last time, trying to burn his image into her being. And then it was time to go away from the in-between place, to somewhere where she could live her truth.

She dove into the chilly, clean ocean.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn. Well, one more chapter after this, folks. I will try not to take such a long time on the next one, though I would like to put some thought into it since it will be the last chapter of this story. And then, who knows? I've been talking about doing a Franklin fic, which I really want to do. I want to do a really heady, rich, emotionally and sensually rife one-shot for his character and an OC. And then I might do another Trevor fic, because I started dallying with another OC in my mind and, well...To put it mildly, she would only fit in Trevor's world. Anyway, let me know what you think. Your comments light up my life. Loves to you all <3


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry to anyone who read this chapter when I posted it prematurely, and a huge thanks to GlamorousGamine for bringing that shit to my attention. This here's the end of the line for this installment, kids. It was quite a ride. I had a lot of fun writing this story and I thank all of you who were with me along the way, keeping me going. You guys rule and you make any frustration worth it.

Michael sat on the firm, inviting foam rubber futon covered in tweed with his head leaned against the headrest, studying the ornate ceiling tiles and enjoying the refrain from Dr. Argus' bizarre insistence that they revisit Ovid's Metamorphoses yet again. The good doctor was a little bit too infatuated with this extended metaphor for Michael's relationship with Gretchen, whose name he hadn't mentioned to the doctor. Still, he couldn't help but think that Argus knew who she was because she was fucking everywhere again, tattling on him without saying a word. In his mind she was, anyway. Which was a good part of why he was here.

"Did your lover every wear maiden braids or a tunic with an empire waist? Can you picture her wearing these? Would it make this visualization exercise more authentic?"

Michael rolled his head up and glared at Argus. "Why are you so insistent on doing this again? I've been seeing you for four weeks, twice a week, and you still want to talk about fucking mythology."

 "We're dealing with your guilt, Michael. I find that it goes down easier when I use metaphors. A spoon full of sugar and that..." Argus said, trailing off.

"I've coped my whole life by covering things up instead of facing them head-on, Doc. I'm trying to turn over a new leaf."

Argus shifted in his chair and sighed deeply through his nose, staring at Michael with a look that was nothing short of mincing. That was part of his charm, Michael thought. The guy was so far removed from concerns about being a beta male that it made it easy to trust him. God bless the freaks.

"That's very admirable. If you don't want to imagine your maiden-"

"Stop calling her that.."

"...as an elegant pastoral quasi-goddess, tormented by the elements but favored heavily among the deities, or at least one in particular, then how would you like to imagine her?"

Michael blinked back some dust and tugged at the lapel of his beige sport coat. He thought about it for a moment before answering, "How about as a human being that I tinkered and toyed with until she got herself shot?" He stood up. "Five foot, three inches of clumsy fury," he sighed. "With two pulpy bullet holes in her back." Michael had found himself becoming, without his permission, increasingly and embarrassingly poetic over the past several weeks. The poetry strangled his speech like an invasive plant species.

Here he was beating himself up again. But for some reason, when he did it in Dr. Argus's office, it didn't cut so much. It was safe in here, but it was when his nightmares got the better of him that he really couldn't stand it. Because he came to realize that it went beyond just Gretchen. He'd been taking the easy way out for so long...It had cost him his family and his integrity. But if he didn't deal with this shit now, then sooner or later he was going to become a next-level cliche. Re-hashing a bunch of shit in his seventies with Gretchen as the apogee to the pain. He didn't want to live that way. Not with what he might have in front of him. And he didn't want for Gretchen to be a symbol of that. She deserved better.

"You've reduced her to her body. To her frailty, Michael."

Michael snapped his head to look at his shrink and barked, "Yeah, well I ain't a fuckin' god and there ain't fuck all that I can do to make it up to her!"

He paced the room, with one hand in his pocket and the other in a fist. “I can't re-do that night to unmake my fuckin' distraction, I can't un-shoot her, I can't travel back in time to stop her old man from getting thrown in jail, effectively inviting every unsavory fuck in San Andreas to have at her...” Michael rattled these things off as though he was building to a nascent point. But he wasn't and he knew it. Even so, it felt good to get all this stuff off his chest.

Argus didn't take his eyes off of Michael as he reached over and pulled open the table side drawer next to his chair and pulled out a blister packet, waving it in front of Michael.

Michael held his hands up. “Nah, I'm done with those. I like 'em too much,” he chuckled before taking a seat again.

Argus chucked the pills back into the drawer and reached in again, pulling out something tiny and wrapped in foil. He unwrapped the gum and popped it in his mouth, chewing slowly and going over his notes. “So that night, ten weeks ago...If you could do it again, what would you do differently?”

“I would have gotten her out of there when I was supposed to. Before she got shot.”

Argus might have rolled his eyes then, but if he had it was subtle. “No, besides that. We've already gone over that. I'm asking you to quit thinking about her physical safety and tell me what it is you would have done in the service of feelings. You've seen people get shot before, Michael, but seeing her get shot was painful because of your feelings for her. Now, with that in mind, what would you have done differently?”

That gave Michael pause. He looked up at Argus and studied his totally unemotional face. He'd said it as though he'd asked him something as simple as his blood-type. Like what he would have done differently was just a fact of his being instead of a twisted, confusing fucking rabbit-hole that sucked him down every couple of times he entered REM sleep. But something clicked for Michael. Maybe it was the sight of this man before him, a man who seemed to have lived a million lives but still found profound contentment in classic bullshit and a stick of gum. Michael knew exactly what he would have done differently.

“That night, I-” he said, cutting himself off with a shaky breath. He leaned back and covered his face with his hands for a minute before he leaned forward again. “She showed up to my house before anyone else got there. She had her hair all done up and her makeup on, but she was wearing this ratty old t-shirt with some metal band from the eighties. And jean shorts covered in white paint.”

Argus stopped chewing and narrowed his eyes at Michael, clearly intrigued.

"Go on."

Michael could feel his eyes glazing over as he pictured the scene. How when he looked at her that night, before she headed up the stairs to put on her dress, she looked like one of those magic eye pictures. Like she was meant to suck him in and force him to think about something other than himself. How she'd done just that.

"She's always been a contradiction. And she spent so many years trying to erase that part of herself, but-"

"But?"

Michael met Argus's eyes with his own bleary ones as his voice went up two octaves, the way it always did when he was timid or excited. "But I think that that's a big part of why I fell in love with her. I wish I'd told her that then."

"That you love her?"

Michael felt his lip twitch at Argus's curtness. "Yeah. That and that I think she was born perfect. Er, the way she was supposed to be, I mean. She doesn't need to try and be good for anyone. Least of all me."

Argus looked at Michael with a look of profound befuddlement and gave an exaggerated shrug. "What the hell is stopping you now?"

Michael guffawed. "It's a little fucking late, isn't it? I lost the moment. Telling her now wouldn't change anything."

Argus sighed dramatically and tossed his pen and pad onto the coffee table between them. It was then that Michael saw that he hadn't been taking notes at all, but had been crudely drawing a centaur. It was as though he wasn't paying this guy to listen to his problems at all, but rather sitting with a fed-up friend with whom he shared no interests.

"Michael, you've been coming to me for the past month and speaking as though what happened that night is some kind of pivot point that you can't leave behind. Like everything that came before and everything that's come after is completely stained by it..."

"Yeah, but-"

"You know what I think? I think the reason you keep coming back here is because you want to whinge about how your big shootout didn't get net you one of the stupid Vinewood circle jerk endings that you love so much."

"Easy, doc!" Michael couldn't think of what else to say. He was mentally trying to sort out the crazy mix of nonsense, possible sophism, and blasphemy that Argus had just hurled at him. It was hurting his head.

Argus shifted in his chair. "I've been keeping you as a patient because, frankly, your life is exciting and listening to your batshit exploits is a lot funner than trying to convince people that their neighbors aren't poisoning their tomato plants with stuff from under the sink. But now you're starting to chapping my ass."

"How the hell am I chapping your ass?" Michael asked incredulously.

Argus leaned forward with a scowl that twisted into a strange smile that still betrayed his distaste. He seemed to figure out that whatever his game was wasn't working, though, so he straightened his face, dampening the creepiness in his countenance, and cleared his throat. "You fell in love with the woman that committed espionage to keep you out of jail. She got shot in front of you, almost died. But she lived, Michael. Against all odds, she lived and you keep coming in here, talking about her like she's dead, and now you're telling me that you're afraid to tell her how you feel. Take a goddamn sec and think about how backwards that is."

"You're the most unprofessional person I've ever met."

"You're not allowed to be scared of your feelings anymore. If you come back here next week and you haven't said what you need to say to that woman, I'll kick your ass out so fast, your head will spin."

"So that's time then?"

"Buh-bye, Michael."

...

Michael drove west on the Del Perro Freeway feeling two tons lighter but two inches tall. Up to this point, he'd been grateful that Argus hadn't ridiculed him or invalidated his feelings. But he was quickly realizing that Argus was the rough human equivalent of one of those snakes in a can and just as unfunny.

The guy did have a point, however. Michael had avoided thinking about why he couldn't stop thinking of Gretchen like she was departed from this plane. It was terrible, he knew, because it meant that in a way he'd left her there in that van. He'd left her again. Any other sane person on planet earth would be rejoicing at the outrageously golden circumstances that had presided over them that night. All green lights on the way to the hospital. A bevvy of world-renowned trauma specialists on hand when they got there. The fact that Gretchen was young and healthy.

He'd promised the white walls of the hospital waiting room that if she was spared, he would spend the rest of his life making it up to her. When she was out of surgery- after he'd called Dave, who convinced the administrators that Gretchen was a confidential informant and that he alone had carte blanche over which authorities were called- he'd gone to her bedside and held her hand while he promised her that he would never let anyone touch her ever again.

Of course, she wasn't exactly in her right mind with the amount of opiates that she was on then. (To her credit, once she was discharged, she showed no interest in reverting to her former ways). She simply gave him a sleepy smile and told him, "Eesss ogay, Mygol. Eesss all ogay now." Then she managed to deliver a three and a half minute symposium on how his eyes were the preeh-ust blue, so pree like the flowers before nodding off. After he chuckled at her gibberish until he thought he might break down.

Michael was coming up on Del Perro Pier. He hadn't even realized how much time had passed while he was lost in his thoughts. When he pulled into the parking lot, he hesitated before he opened the door. He wasn't quite ready. This kept happening. Every time he was away from her for more than an hour, he got this nagging feeling that something might have transpired in his absence and that when she saw him next, she would be pissed at him.

He watched sunbathed beauties and their meathead boyfriends strolling along the beach, along with the usual parade of tourists and past-their-primers covered from head to toe in fabric to protect them from the sun, with which they seemed to have a love/hate relationship. He thought about all that Dr. Argus had said to him and wondered if he was bluffing when he said that he would kick him out of the office if he didn't talk to Gretchen about his feelings or whatever. And then he wondered if he was crazy for giving a shit, seeing as how the guy he was paying to listen to his problems treated him like an undergrad student half the time and a friendly punching bag the other half.

Michael got out of his car and began the walk to the pier to meet Gretchen. She was spending a lot of time here these days. He figured that she liked the noise and the people and the water. Which was pretty much all that Del Perro Pier was. He could already hear the buzzing of the ferris wheeler turning over, the seagulls, the idle conversation and laughter. He wandered through the swarm of faces, making his way to where she liked to go, at the end of the boardwalk. When he was almost there, all he saw were strangers, most of them turning around to head back to the thoroughfare. She wasn't around. He had a look around to see if she was straggling or if she'd wandered off on her own beaten path.

After a few minutes, he decided to turn around. He pulled out his phone to call her when something caught his eye. A streak of white wandering past him. He looked up to see what the streak was. It was a billowy sundress that was almost impossibly, incandescently white. The woman was tall, with ash blonde hair. She strode right past him and walked to the railing, looking out to the sea. Michael just kind of zoned out looking at her. Her dress was so white.

After a moment, as though she sensed his eyes on her, she turned around to look at him, holding her hand up to her eyes to block the sun. She smiled at him. "Hallo!" she said in a thick European accent. She was beautiful. Extraordinarily beautiful, actually. She looked to be in her late forties, but was likely a bit older if the streaks of white in her hair were any indication. He couldn't quite put his finger on what that accent was, where it was from.

"Hi."

"Is everything alright?"

Michael thought he might know her from somewhere, but he couldn't quite place it. He tried not to stare too hard at her. "Er, yeah..."

"Are you lost?"

"No...I...I'm looking for someone."

She smiled at him warmly. It was her mouth. Something about her mouth, that smile...It was uncanny. Her hand was casting a shadow on her face, making it hard for him to summon her identity from his mind. He had seen her, hadn't he? Maybe on a soap opera or something?

"Oh?"

"Yeah, my...I'm looking for my friend. She's about yea high," he said holding his palm downward at chin level. "Light brown hair, probably wearing work boots and cutoffs. She's...I dunno, young?" he said, a little sheepishly. He still hadn't figured out how to deal with people's perception of that little age difference, even if it was fairly typical in this town.

The woman let go a high-pitched giggle through her nostrils. "I'm not sure you've narrowed it down too much."

"Right?" Michael mused quietly.

She dropped her hand and cocked her head at him, still flashing him that warm smile, though now she looked a bit like she felt sorry for him. She finally spoke after a moment of casting that matronly gaze on him. She held her finger up to her mouth and put on an exaggerated thinking face. "You know, I think I might have seen a young lady like that under the boardwalk, playing in the surf. You should check there."

Michael smiled at her. She might have been the nicest lady he'd ever met in L.S. that wasn't being paid to be nice. "Hey, I appreciate it."

"Don't ruin your nice shoes while you're down there," she said gesturing at his feet.

"Sure," he replied.

She turned around slowly and Michael took that to mean that their acquaintance had just run its course before his eyes. He snickered to himself as he turned around and began the trek back.

...

Gretchen had tired of jumping up and down in the surf, feeling the spongy sand and briny water shooting up between her toes. Now she studied the pylons that supported the pier, picking at the ossified barnacles and running her hand over the slick vegetation and wayward fishing lines that wound a tight netting around the base of them. Since she didn't quite have a full range of motion yet, she had to revel in the odd round of tactile stimulation to keep her from feeling claustrophobic. She wanted to feel everything now. It was probably just a watershed event precipitated by, you know, almost dying, but she was insatiable.

It wasn't one big honeymoon with her new lease on life, however. There were some...hurdles. For one, she had never noticed the backfiring of a car, but three days after she was discharged from the hospital, she heard it. She felt her blood run cold, as they say, and she decided that being in public was not at the top of her priorities list that day. She didn't really want to live her life like that. To that end, she got herself a shrink. So she and Michael had his and hers mental health professionals in their orbits now.

She'd gotten a female therapist recommended by Michael's Bureau contact. The woman had spent the better part of two decades running psych evals on law enforcement, so Gretchen's foray into criminality hardly fazed her and might have been downright refreshing. Plus, Dr. Barilla was just a nice gal. Besides, she couldn't very well go back to that pill-slinging whack job Argus once Michael had appropriated his services. Not that she'd want to anyway. Dude was a grade-A nutbar with a serious hard on for classicism. She and Michael didn't talk too much about what went on in their respective therapy sessions, but she figured that Argus was more Michael's speed anyway, since he was already being less of an aloof weirdo since beginning treatment.

She was sad that Michael hadn't figured out a way to get past his guilt and perpetual worry so that they could figure their shit out. She knew that it would be slow coming, but she was kind of walking on fucking sunshine when she wasn't dodging imaginary bullets and fixating on how much she disliked how certain people walked. (People that walked like Wallace, all suave and piss proud were legion in Los Santos, especially in Michael's neighborhood.). She wished that he would join her up on her cloud. She'd needed to readjust her expectations, and she thought that she was being a trooper, but it was hard when he was so far away half the time and all up in her business the rest of the time.

To deal with it, she'd spent a lot of time trying to remember what had happened after she was shot. Mostly, she could remembered the pier, hence the waking infatuation with the place. She would come down here and stand at the end of the pier, holding her thumb up to the ocean like an artist trying to gauge scale, trying to see how accurate her memory was. She remembered seeing her mom. And Michael. And she remembered surrendering to the not-knowing. It had made her more or less fearless when her base mechanisms for sensing danger weren't taken into account. Now she was left with impressions. Feelings. Feelings like it would be okay. And since she'd been given that gift along with a second (or third or fourth, if you want) chance, she'd decided to wait for Michael, even if she was getting impatient.

An especially hearty wave rushed into the shore just then sending a surge of briny water against the odd shore rocks. A spray of ocean water was projectiled into Gretchen's face. She instinctively turned away, wringing water off of her arms and slinging it out of her eyes, retreating further in-shore. It was when she looked over to check that her little camp in the sand that consisted of her boots, thigh high socks and bag was undisturbed by the tide that she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She looked to where she saw the unnatural gleaming atop a dry rock by one of the pylons. She moved closer until she saw what was sitting atop the rock. When it finally sunk in what she was seeing, she couldn't believe it.

"Holy fuck!" she exclaimed, picking up the sunglasses and turning them over in her hand.

"Holy fuck what?" came a voice.

She looked up to see Michael and, as she always did when they'd been apart, she beamed at him. This time, though, she had something to show for their time apart. She held up the sunglasses to him.

"Michael, look!" she exclaimed giddily as she walked toward him.

He stared down his nose at what she held in her hand before shooting him a quizzical look. "Sunglasses," he said matter-of-factly with a shrug.

Gretchen's shoulder's slumped, sending a muddy shock of pain through her right one. She winced and muttered "ow," before she launched into her rebuttal.

"No, sweetie, they aren't just sunglasses, they're my sunglasses!" Michael shrugged again with a look that conveyed his utter lack of enthusiasm but happiness at hers for the find. She'd been finding things to be excited about an awful lot lately, so Michael's indifference was hardly new.

"Yeah, I mean finders keepers," he offered. She sighed heavily, immediately getting Michael's attention.

"No..." she replied, trying to gather her patience. She sighed heavily and when she saw his face again, she saw that he was looking like he was feeling cornered, so she relaxed her stance a bit. "Remember the second time we met, over there?" she asked gesturing to where they had been standing together that day. "And I leaned over and my sunglasses fell into the water and then you jokingly offered to jump in and get them and then you gave me your sunglasses?" she said, practically in a single breath.

"Yeah, I remember, but-"

"What, you don't believe me?" she asked defensively. He was staring at her in that weird way that he sometimes did these days, like she was touched or something. He held the glasses up to his face and he flinched almost automatically. "I scratched out the logo on the arm with a straight pin, lookit-"

Michael snatched the glasses from her hand and took her by the shoulders.

"Gretch, I need to talk to you about something," he said softly.

She pulled her head as far back away from him as she could without breaking his grip on her shoulders so that she could try and get a read on what his expression was like.

"What's up?" she asked before launching into a rapid-fire line of questioning. "Did something happen at your session? Or on the way here? Are you about to break up with me, 'cause that'd be pretty fucked up timing on your part, Michael."

"I'm _not_ breaking up with you," he shot defensively, releasing his grip on her shoulders and pacing in front of her a little bit, looking not unlike a caged panther.

"Are you okay?" she asked, concerned for him now.

He stopped in front of her, his eyes softening a bit, features relaxing. He had his thinking face on.

"Let's get out of L.S. for a couple'a days..." he said.

...

She had been taken aback slightly by Michael's off the cuff suggestion that they leave town, but as soon as they started making their way into wine country, a little under two hours drive from her apartment, she started to get excited. The sun was promising to make quite a lovely show of gilding the beautiful green hills and mountains before too long. Michael had promised her that he wouldn't drag her into a tasting room to watch a bunch of out of touch baby boomers and post-ironic millenial hipsters drink too much.

"You're really going to hike?"

"Why do you say that like it's so abberant?" Michael whined.

"You just seem like a beach jogger or an elliptical guy," Gretchen shrugged, trying to hide her smile.

Michael was wearing a crooked smile of his own, but obviously reluctant to give her the satisfaction. He cleared his throat before he decelerated and turned onto a small road. Gretchen narrowed her eyes and looked at the surroundings. Only a quarter of the mile up the road, this place already felt seriously isolated. They began making their way up a grade, slowly gaining elevation. 

"What are we doing?"

"Just takin' a detour."

"Do you even know where we are?"

"Yeah, I checked this place out on Eyefind Maps. It's supposed to be really pretty and the inn is just a hop, skip, and a jump down the way," he said with an enthusiasm whose authenticity was difficult to guage.

Gretchen looked around. The lovely foliage was starting to get thicker and there was an itty-bitty clear stream by the road. Finally, they reached the top of the hill and pulled over. There was dust hanging in the air, glittering with the eventide light waves. The hills were rolling on all sides of them, with the San Chianski mountain looming in the distance.

They both got out of the car and made their way up to the apex of the hill, both of them making a beeline for the same rock. They took a seat next to one another and took in the scenery around them. The air smelled clean, like fresh cut grass but less artificial. There was a herd of elk way off in the distance. The way the hills were arranged created some kind of diving insulation from the sounds of traffic. You couldn't see the roads, either.

"Wow, I don't know if this is the place you were thinking of or if you just got us lost, but you done good, pumpkin," she said with a laugh.

He scooched closer to her and half-whispered into her ear. "I didn't get us lost." It was almost a growl, actually, and Gretchen giggled when he nipped at the side of her neck.

She turned to him. "I wouldn't mind getting lost with you, you know," she said sincerely.

The smile he gave her then was downright boyish and sent a sweet, tingly warmth through her.

"I'd like to get lost with you, too, Gretch," he said softly.

Her face was strained a little against the smile that was holding back the flood of adoration that she wanted to heap on him right then. She still thought that Michael was cool. She'd never had a boyfriend that was so cool, so she was going to give him another six months before she bombarded him with her unrestrained joy.

They were quiet for another minute, enjoying the peace of this place. How green it was, the pleasant babbling sound that the creek made and the musicality of whatever insects made all this greenery their home. How unorthodox their union was, how fraught with peril it had been up to this point, how much this little excursion underscored the utter lack of peace that they'd endured to get here. To this place where things were still. It might have been frightening if it wasn't so great.

He rested his hand on the inside of her knee and stroked with his thumb. This was probably the first time in her life that she was okay with things not being anywhere near perfect. She knew, could almost perceive before her, the uphill battle that they were going to have to contend with to figure themselves and each other out. But it wasn't so scary this time. She thought that a part of her might even be looking forward to it. They weren't exactly what one might call casual, but they hadn't really discussed their expectations or desires. They had been too focused on trying to make sense of the past several months. Maybe they could find a way to make it interesting instead of intimidating while neither one of them had any expectations.

"I love you," Michael said.

"Huh?" Gretchen said, turning to him. She hadn't comprehended what he said.

He turned to face her, his blue eyes flashing in the tired, tawny light of dusk proper.

"I said 'I love you,' Gretchen Enwright."

She felt like her heart had just multiplied in her chest, dropping spores and developing an imperial feely cave in her center.

"I love you, too."

She felt lighter after she said it, collapsing into his shoulder. He kissed on top of her head, tipping her chin up and planting one on her nose, then her mouth. When he broke this kiss he pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. She tipped her head back and looked at him admiringly down the bridge of her nose while he read her mind.

"What are we gonna do, baby?" he asked.

She smiled blissfully and lazily at him. "I dunno."

"Will you stick around while we figure it out?"

 "Okay," she said for want of a better way to express herself. He'd made her into a dewey-eyed, lovestruck, aphonic teenager. She let her body language pick up the slack, wrapping her arms around his neck and smashing his nose into his.

That night, they would get one step closer to figuring out what  _Michael and Gretchen_ was going to look like when they stood on the balcony of their room at an inn in wine country, quietly celebrating the people celebrating themselves, stumbling through the gravel back to their rooms. They would make love and laugh and give one another a hard time about their clothes and their taste in music. They would make mental notes to make sure that Trevor was never left alone on Mother's Day, that Franklin got himself a constructive hobby, and that Lester didn't develop a vitamin D deficiency. They would agree that Gretchen never had to go to a movie premier if Michael never had to say the serenity prayer. 

That would be the first night of many that they fell asleep in each other's arms, not dreading what images came to them in the night. And when they woke up the next day, the only thing on either one's mind would be how they were going to spend a sweet twenty four hours away from skyscrapers and scoundrels.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope nobody was put off by the fact that I pulled a bit of a fake out. I seriously considered killing Gretchen, but I really just couldn't bear the thought of her going out never having become a self-actualized person. This way, we can imagine that she did that for herself. I don't know what or when my next fic will make an appearance. I'm working more now, but as always, this is one of the many things that helps me blow off some steam. I said it before, but it bears mentioning again, that my brain surprised me with another concept for an OC and that she is very much Trevor's speed, so that might show up in the list view before too long. Thanks, you guys. Mad love to you all.


End file.
